Iv'e downloaded 2 copies of it, tried burning the CD with 2 different writer packages (has worked in the past), and now I have 4 CD's that won't boot. The lengthly 6 floppy way... failed due to be not being able to find 6 disks without any bad sectors. (also life is too short)

I have a version 7.1 CD that will boot fine, and I have tried swapping CD's at the boot: prompt but that doesn't seem to work as it can't locate a kernel image. Letting the kernel boot from the 7.1 CD and swapping disks at the shell prompt also doesnt work since the setup program source structure on the 8.1 CD is not recognised.

Im going to give that SmartBoot manager a go, but I think I'm probably sailing into the night.

What could I have done wrong ?

Thank's Excalibur
http://btmgr.sourceforge.net
Just what I needed

what was your hardisk is it ide scsi or what.
My friend tried the 8.1 with celeron processor and an ide hardisk
the cd didn't boot, but when he tried it with p3 or amd duron it work out just fine maybe you need to upgrade your hardware first before you upgrade 8.1

I wasnt able to boot my 8.1 iso either, i just made the 6 boot disks and went on with my life lol. Didn't want to spend to much time on it.

You can get the files in /rootdisks

get install.1 - install.5

and bare.i

i was in win2k when i created the disks so i used RAWRITENT.EXE


cya

I wondered if it was just me! My 8.1 CD's wouldn't boot either! But I upgraded from 8.0 using the instructions in UPGRADE.TXT and now I'm running the latest and greatest.

HDD was a IBM 6Gig IDE but I figure it would have more to do with the motherboard BIOS that any disk or CPU plugged into it.

That bootmanager util was able to boot the CD straight away. It installs to your master boot record and was way quicker than formatting 6 floppies.

The SmartBoot manager can also be installed to just a single floppy disk. When booted it will scan all the devices for any available supported boot device. A menu is then presented for you to choose from.

On my notebook that does not support bootable CD at all, I installed it on the hard disk to provide the support now and in the future.

After successful installation of slackware 8.1 on my home desktop, a HP pavilion 7970, I try to install it on my machine at work. The system would not boot from the slackware 8.1 cd. The same system has never have any problem in booting FreeBSD 4.6, Slackware 8.0 or WinNT 2000 pro straight from their installation cds. Also, the slackware installation cd would not boot from my Toshiba laptop either. I suspect that Patrick has some what changed the format on the slackware boot image that causes imcompatible with some atapi cdrom.

The new Slack 8.1 is using a new system for booting the CD. Slack 8.0 and prior used the El Torrito 2.88 disk emulation. The new software just can't fit within that limited space. So the boot image had to be changed that wasn't limited in the capacity. The details for mkisofs are in the ISOLINUX directory.

Excalibur, what files did you download for SmartBoot manager?

http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/index.p...=download.html

I actually downloaded the source and the binaries for both DOS and Linux. I also pulled the docs.

However, if you just want what you need, then get the "sbminst-static" for Linux and for DOS get both "sbminst.exe" / "cwsdpmi.exe." If other than US english then you might want the themes pack as well.

Most excellent software tool. I have many uses for the program. Worthy of inclusion in any toolkit.

Thanx, Excalibur. I'm going to download the sbminst-static file.

I bought slackware 8.1 and I still have run into a few computers that say its not a bootable cd-rom. I was being told before that it was the way I was burning it from people, but I think it has to do with the new system they are using to boot after reading the above info.

Is there anyway to know which computers will work and which ones wont? Is it BIOS that is the the limiting factor or is it the cd-rom itself? Any info on this would be great! For now I guess I will go make some floppy boot disks for the other system I want to put slack on that just won't boot off the cd-rom!

I would think that instead of limiting cd-rom boot support, that it may have been a better idea to spead the data over 2 cd-roms...

The issue here is not with whither to use more CD's. The prior Slack distributions used El Torrito disk emulation for boot support. The new system is unable to fit within that boot restriction. If you are experiencing problems, I would recommend using Smart Boot Manager. It can be installed to single a floppy disk and booted. The boot menu will offer the choice to boot CDROM. No BIOS support required and it uses only one floppy disk.

http:///btmgr.sourceforge.net

ah, I guess I didn't understand that exactly. Do you know what the name of this new system is?
(just curious)

I will also check out that boot manager.
thanks.