heres the situation;

first im sorry for my poor english....

im now currently running mandrake 9.1 on this machine, before i have installed this, im running mandrake 9.0, then, found out that theres an updated version of glibc on mandrake 9.1 so ive downloaded disc-1 of mandrake 9.1 then use urpmi to add more programs, now, before completely concentrating on my currently established setup, ive tried installing mandrake 9.0 then just "update" to mandrake 9.1, experementing through packages and dependencies. until one night, i came up with this "super" problem...

before, i used to boot from mandrake 9.0 discs and install it or even use it as rescue discs, but suddenly, i cant now, disc wont continue booting, it just stops on the message, "Uncompressing Kernel(whatever)... " then stops. the whole system stops and even keyboard lights wont funtion... what is wierd is that it only accepts mandrake 9.1 boot disk(coz i just downloaded cd1.iso), heres the summary

mandrake 9.0 Disc 1 etc.. = boots but stops suddenly w/o any errors thus making it unusable, but b4 i use it as rescue and install disc.

mandrake 9.0 boot diskette = same as above, stops on boot.. etc.. but working properly as b4

mandrake 9.1 boot diskette = boots properly.. (the only thing that works)...

redhat 7.3 Disc 1.. etc = works b4, same as mandrake 9.0 discs now, wont boot properly..

i even tried removing all the HD and just leaving the cdrom on IDE just to make it work / test..

the buttom line is, b4, all these are working and booting properly, does this distros writes something to bios? or board chip? w/c MAY prevents my other distros to boot?

so anyone can help me out me here, its been very annoying and so much headache, i cant firgure out the problem, theres no error messages for clues...

the distros can't write anything to BIOS, and wouldn't if they could.
you're sure the BIOS is set to boot from CDROM? that would explain nicely if it wasn't.
have you touched any other BIOS settings at any point? it seems very odd that the CD booting has been broken...
have you made any other hardware changes?

MN

nop, thats why its so wierd for me, i havent done anything except for some adjustments on partition using partition magic. and yes and im sure i have set the bios to boot from cd, coz it boots from these mediums but cant go over and finish the job. (just stops on message Unpacking Kernel (whatever))...

the situation now is, i can boot my installed drake 9.1 , can boot from boot disketter created by drake 9.1 but cant boot on any boot diskette and other distros (cds.. etc..) other than drake 9.1..... i have no errors when ever i boot other distro cds / disks except for "it JUST STOPS..."

ADDED INFO: i can boot dos disks.... but linux distros (thats uses kernel stuff).. i cant except for drake 9.1 ... tnx mindnumbed for the reply..

ANYONE?

this is so wierd I would be suspicious of hardware - you could try swapping RAM modules, CD drives, etc until you find a combination that causes the freeze. My best guess is that something has developed a fault that most linux kernels can't deal with...though it doesn't seem that satisfactory an explantion.
IMHO it would be worth trying different RAM, CDROM, ect - also mebbe try swapping the CD drive/ram into another machine and booting that from CD/floppy

this is turning into a very interesting problem!

MN

tnx again so much mindnumbed for posting ur reply.., well atleast i know i may be the only one who experiencing this,or atleast the only one who will not give up on this... and yes, ill try that, actually thats what i also have in mind, i just bring this problem up for the record and for future reference... and for the thought of maybe someone already encountered this kind of problem.

what im goin to do is swap some hardware and test this mediums (cd) on my other machine (my sister's) just to see if it boots up.. hope i can find the problem so i may have the solution, i have seen same prob from one of the newbie here at LQ, im defenitely sure we encounter same prob, i just forgot the thread, anyway, ill try to play around, its so hard coz kernel doesnt give me any messages to start with, it doesnt even boot/load correctly, so wish me luck (guys)... still hopes someone can give me some hints on these... tnx.....

just a thought...debian boot floppies (and probably others) give a very good selection of kernels/modules: maybe experimenting with different boot images (<cdrom>/images on both MDK 9.1 and 9.0) could give us some more clues. I have not tried to boot my PC with anything other than LILO since install, though my other drak9.1 machine works just fine with a gentoo liveCD I had kicking about.

MN

now my priority is, how do i restore my partition using partimage(the one i used for backup), coz i still need to boot from CD(rescureCD) if i want to restore my partition, i cant boot from any other medium except for drake 9.1 disk.. so i cant make the emergency CD with partimage binary.. for short, how can i restore my partition without mounting my root (/) first to run partimage binary...???? anyone????

sorry, what partition are you restoring?
my personal approach would be rto reinstall linux but not format the /home partition, that way you get a working OS without losing files.

tnx...
well... i cloned this partition, ext3.. used partimage to make a copy to my second HD.. well.. my aproach would be the other way around, sending back the partition i cloned... actually, it has an option to copy back the clone partition, now may Q is.. is it proper to restore the files, and overwrite it (coz its mounted(/)) ,ive tried it once, it worked but i think , the groups and users are not properly copied coz some guid's are missing according to the errors i encountered...

now, if it is proper, then ill make a clone of this partition, backup /etc using mandrake tools, and my /home,/root... then , restore the "clone" and restore the directories( /etc, /home, /root)...

(--sorry for my poor enlish...)

anyone??????

yeah copying over the cloned partition should work, though it will be hideously insecure, so i reccommend doing it to save your data then reinstalling.

tnx so much mindnumbed for the response......

anyone can give me any ideas about me thread topic?

anyone???

tnx so much mindnumbed for the response......

anyone can give me any ideas about THE thread topic?

anyone???