I must be an idiot but the iso won't boot on my laptop

Rhodium · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 4 Location: AZ

Hi all,

gentoo-ix86-1.1a.iso
gentoo-i686-1.1a.iso

I have downloaded both .iso's verified md5sums and attempted several times to burn these using two known good burners on two platforms (linux and windows) and I cannot boot these disks. I have tried booting them to three computers, including my laptop with no luck. Is there something special about these iso's that I should be aware of. I really want to use gentoo, but I am quickly becoming dismayed at this. I can mount these disks once I am in linux, but can't boot them. These are bootable right?

funsize · Posted: Fri May 10, 2002 5:24 pm Post subject: iso images should boot

the CD images SHOULD be bootable...

if you can't boot from them, then I would
a) double-check that booting from CD is enabled in BIOS (just to be sure)
b) make sure you created them correctly with your burning program (though if you can mount them, this should be OK)
c) try another burner?

other than that I don't know...it seems like I had a similar problem once, but I seem to have killed off that brain cell

is there a way to check whether a CD is bootable with some software tool?
does your burning software support this?
_________________
...SO SAYS FUNSIZE

Rhodium · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 4 Location: AZ

Ok let's look at what you said..

a) Definately enabled tried a test disk just to make sure..
b) cdrecord -v speed=2 dev0,3,0 gentoo-ix86-1.1a.iso
c) Tried this in windows on a different machine

I don't know of any options for an iso to be bootable using cdrecord, and I can't find anything with cd creator..

Ok, now what..

Thanks anyway

funsize · Posted: Fri May 10, 2002 6:41 pm Post subject: shot in the dark...

you could try looking in /etc/cdrecord/ for the cdrocord config files...
make sure there isn't anything in the default config that would cause a problem.

could it be the CD-ROM drive itself?
try a google search looking for your cd-ROM model number, and something like "can't boot from CD"

I'm totally guessing at this point. I really don't know all that much about cdrecord...only used it a couple of times.

It would be nice if we could figure this out though, since I have a machine that is doing somthing similar...but it won't boot from any CD. Gotta be harware...

try getting some other bootable CD and see if you can boot from that, maybe

sorry if I'm not much help... :cry:

_________________
...SO SAYS FUNSIZE

Rhodium_wk · Guest

I just burned my debian cd and it worked. I wonder if this doesn't contain a bootable image file. If you look at the cd-rom howto
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/cd-roms.html you need to do a dd. Did they do this for this set or not??

I think this needs to be a bug.. This totally sucks! I wish I knew how to fix this

Guest · Posted: Fri May 10, 2002 8:52 pm Post subject:

they are bootable...atleast i have three of them the 1.0 the 1.1a witht eh threestages and then the 16mb 1.1a that just has the x86 on it all boot just fine...what software are you using in windows to burn them?....try nero

Rhodium · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 4 Location: AZ

Hi all,

Here's what I did
# mount gentoo-ix86-1.1a.iso -r -t iso9660 -o loop /mnt
# cd /mnt
# mkdir /tmp/gentoo
# pwd
# find . -print -depth | cpio -pdmv /tmp/gentoo/

Ok let's look in here to see what we have.. We'd better have an El Torito boot image, which should be 1.4M 2.8M or 1.2M per the man page. See mkisofs -b option..

# ls -altr
total 7935
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 8119004 Apr 8 12:30 stage1-ix86-1.1a.tbz2
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 232 Apr 8 12:30 isolinux
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 112 May 10 17:01 .
drwxrwxrwt 15 root root 1336 May 10 17:24 ..
# cd isolinux/
# ls -altr
total 8273
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 7311082 Apr 8 12:30 rescue.gz
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 1130925 Apr 8 12:30 kernel
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 66 Apr 8 12:30 message.txt
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 585 Apr 8 12:30 isolinux.cfg
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 8552 Apr 8 12:30 isolinux.bin
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 2048 Apr 8 12:30 boot.catalog
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 232 Apr 8 12:30 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 112 May 10 17:01 ..

So what the heck is the boot image here. I tried all of the candidates to now avail. I was planning on heading into this with the idea I would recreate the iso, figuring the person who did this made a mistake. I can't believe this is bootable..

Any ideas

Guest · Posted: Sat May 11, 2002 6:02 am Post subject:

Same problem here - x86 iso image doesn't boot from a SCSI cd-rom.
I've verified that cd-rom is ok - it boots RH 7.3 cd, and verified that burner is ok - I used it to burn both RH and Gentoo cd's...looks like Gentoo image is not bootable - bios doesn't recognize it correctly either.

Guest · Posted: Sat May 11, 2002 6:24 am Post subject:

Same problem here - x86 iso image doesn't boot from a SCSI cd-rom.
I've verified that cd-rom is ok - it boots RH 7.3 cd, and verified that burner is ok - I used it to burn both RH and Gentoo cd's...looks like Gentoo image is not bootable - bios doesn't recognize it correctly either.

Buzzz · Posted: Sat May 11, 2002 9:50 am Post subject:

Maybe you should check this:
http://syslinux.zytor.com/iso.php
It could be that the cdrom does not support this pretty new type of bootable cdroms...

Rhodium · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 4 Location: AZ

Hi all,
The cdrom that I am booting to is different than the cdrom I am burning to. I burn to a scsi cdrom. I am booting to a laptop (thinkpad) cdrom. I have done this before, in fact I just did it to verify my sanity.. I have burned cdroms before and booted them in the manner. I can't do this with the 1.1a version of gentoo.