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Stange floppy error


SonicDragon

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SonicDragon

When i use the rawrite.exe program to try and create boot disks for Slackware, get a 16 bit error box that says something else is useing the floppy drive when nothing else is:C:\WINDOWS\System32\cmd.exe - rawrite bare.i a:Drive A: . Unable to lock for exclusive access. Another application may be using the drive. When the other application has finished using the drive you may retry the operation. Choose 'close' to terminate the application.I either get that error or the cmd propt says:C:\>rawrite bare.i a:Number of sectors per track for this disk is 18Writing image to drive A:. Press ^C to abort.Attempt to DMA across 64K boundaryand nothing happens. Man, Linux is just not ment to be on my older pc. I can't even get past the bootdisks with Slackware! HA! ;)

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Here is what to do from Slackware themselves:Creating Boot DisksWhen I installed Slackware 9.0, didn't use floppies; set the BIOS to boot from the Slack CD, then it went fairly well, after Bruno gave the "silver bullet": <bare.i root=/dev/sda1 noapic> (this typed at the very start, at the prompt).Here's another total install - in 15 steps; when I printed out the Slackware site's version, it was 52 pages. ;) Slackware InstallBest of good fortune - it will be worth the effort. :)

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Sonic,I once had the same problems, an old P1 refused to boot from CD, making a floppy with a boot image got the job done, it booted first from the floppy and found the CD-rom player without any hesitation. The only difference with your situation is that I could make that boot-floppy in Linux. I have no experience making it in Windows, but I know it can be done. Once you pass that hurdle you will be fine for the install.<_< Bruno

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Could very well be, some CD´s boot fine on old PC´s some just don´t and you need a boot-floppy to get the CD started.:( Bruno

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SonicDragon

I ment to make the disk in? If it doesn't work under windows maybe i can just stick a knoppix disk in this one and make a boot disk from there.But, haven't found my disk yet... which one of u took it?

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Sonic the boot image is on the slack CD, first you will have to write that to the /home in your Knoppix, then:< dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0 >Burt I have very strong doubts on this procedure.Why did the trick in wiondows not work ? The raw-write program should be straight forward . . ? !:( Bruno

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Sonic;What is the name of the boot image you will use ? why bare.i ? ( just a question, just want to know if you are sure this is the right one ) And where did you put that ¨bare.i¨ file to begin with ? is it on C:\ ? can the program rawwrite find it ?This is the command:C:\>RAWRITE bare.i A:That should work as far as I know . . . :( Bruno

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SonicDragon

That is the command i have been using the whole time and that was included in my first post. That's where i was getting the error.Umm, no i'm not sure about bare.i. Everything that i have read says to start out with bare.i as it is sort of the 'standard' disk that works for most computers.Yes, both rawrite and bare.i are in C:\I still can't find my Knoppix disk! Where did it go!Thanks :(

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Yes I saw your first post, but rawwrite might be case sensitive, that´s why I wrote the command in capital and lowercase characters, you never know . . . :( Bruno

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Sonic did you see this:

Quickstart for LOADLIN-1.6==========================Version 1.6 of LOADLIN (as opposite to prior versions) normally needs nospecial configuration and has been reported very stable by all ALPHA testers,so I guess you will only need LOADLIN.EXE,Copy this file to a DOS partition (e.g C:\LOADLIN).To boot Linux you need also a compressed kernel image file such asthe "/vmlinuz" or the "/usr/src/zImage". In Slackware distribution youcan find a lot of kernels (bare, scsi, modern, ...) in the directory..../slackware/kernels of the site you got it from.Copy the image file to your DOS partion (e.g. C:\).To boot type at dos prompt:  1. For a Linux partition (ext2, minix, ...) to mount as root      loadlin c:\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb2 ro                                        ==  2. For an UMSDOS filesystem to mount as root      loadlin c:\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 rw                                        ==  3. To boot for installation from a ramdisk image as a file  (may be directly from CD) haveing a kernel >= 1.3.73      loadlin c:zimage root=/dev/ram rw initrd=c:rootdsk.gz  4. To boot from a SlackWare installation root floppy in drive A:  having the kernel ( < 1.3.48 ) image file on the hard disk.      loadlin c:bare root=/dev/fd0 rw ramdisk=1440  The same, but with a kernel >= 1.3.48      loadlin c:bare root=/dev/fd0 rw load_ramdisk=1  Dito, but haveing a prompt before insertion of the floppy      loadlin c:bare root=/dev/fd0 rw load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=1NOTE: You must know what root partition to use, the above /dev/xxx      are only examples !!!If you didn't succeed, please read the file MANUAL.TXT.Hans Lermen<elserv.ffm.fgan.de>
Looks like you could start the installation from ram-disk ( memory ):( Bruno
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SonicDragon

It looks like u have to have dos working...I don't have dos on the old computer. Last thing it has was mandrake, but that doesn't even boot up now. I think i might of done something to it when trying to install BSD.I can't wait till this summer when i can do a dual boot on this computer.

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Why not re-install mandrake and make the boot-disk for Slack in Mandrake with < dd if=bare.i of=/dev/fd0 > that´s much easyer then rawwritte. Then try to boot the install CD for Slack.Here is another thing that worries me a bit:

If you are unable to boot the Slackware installation CD directly, you'llneed create these floppy disks in order to load the installer. In the past,there's only been one rootdisk floppy called "color.gz", but now there are5 floppy images, and you'll need all five of them. The reason for this isthat the size of the installer image after compression has exceeded 1.44MB,and the kernel can either load a compressed rootdisk image, or an uncompressedone that spans multiple floppy images
If you have to make 5 floppies you better have Mandrake to do it.:) Bruno
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SonicDragon

Humm... yes i did read that but it seemed like that was from an older article... I didn't find anything on the slack site that mentioned that. Yes, i probably will end up reinstalling mandrake at some point. Of course, that isn't nessasarily a bad thing :)

Edited by SonicDragon
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Correct it was not exactly direct linked to 9.0, but I remember that text popping up several times as 9.0 hit the mirrors a few month ago . . . . the color.gz was a file on the 8.1, so this makes you think it has to do with 9.0 indeed.I remember installing VectorLinux ( slack-based ) on an old computer that did not boot from the CD, had to make 2 floppies, a boot image and a root image, it took a while before I had the right root image ( there were 4 to choose from, had to try them all 4 ) but in the end I did get it done, but only because I could make the floppy on my main computer . . . . in Mandrake . . . was quiet an adventure !Anyways good luck Sonic, I hope you get it done in the end !:) Bruno

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