I am trying to install Knoppix to my hard drive. So, I go "knoppix 2" at the boot screen off the CD and boot into text mode. Then I go "sudo knoppix-installer". Works fine, then I get to the part where I choose my hard drive. I used my internal hard drive (I have 2, one external, one internal). Then it said that the drive was read only and I couldn't modify data. THEN it said that there was a critical error about something. I can't remember what. Heh.

I've tried installing Knoppix with multiple versions, but to no avail. Please help. Thanks.

bump

bump AGAIN

i need help.........................

I'm not familiar with the Knoppix installer, but you seem pretty familiar with the command line, so lets see what's what.

After it errors out, what is listed under "df -h"

Just trying to figure out what the mounted volume is... let's say the internal drive is /dev/hda... does it cut partitions for you? Or are you supposed to do the whole partition and filesystem creation before by hand?

cfdisk /dev/hda

And see what the filesystem partition types are after it barfs... Maybe its got some resilient silliness that we can hand hack around.

Cheers,

Finegan

thanks for the help man.

ok i go "df -h":

/dev/root
/dev/scd0
/dev/cloop
/ramdisk


heres the error i get when i go "cfdisk /dev/hda":

fatal error: cannot read disk drive

that was the error i was talking about in my first post. i thought that my bios password may be causing this problem, so i turned it off, then tried again. but no change.

when i booted into knoppix gui, and looked on the desktop, here are the drives/partitions that i found:

mnt/hdc2: my default windows OS on my internal hd
mnt/hdc1: looks like some dell utility partition............... (it has to be on my internal hd)
mnt/hdc4: looks like DOS, but i've never seen it before (it has to be on my internal hd)
mnt/hdc5: my "fast" windows os on my internal hd, which i use for gaming
mnt/sda1: external hard drive that isn't bootable - just stored files

thanks again

This is a little odd, your primary HD is jumpered master but its on the secondary IDE controller. I'm having a hard time believing that Knoppix is too stupid to install to that...

So, what are you trying to do? Zap the windows install? Or are you aiming for that "pseudo" install thing with Knoppix where it creates a file on the windows partition that stores some base settings, etc, and you just live off of the CD?

Cheers,

Finegan

No, I have about 2 GB free space on the internal HD that I wish to install Linux on.

And then install the Lilo bootloader. I don't want to lose any partition or anything.

Okay, I gotcha now. I think Knoppix is getting confused about that whole "free space" thing. It doesn't know to partition off and mkfs on whichever it is you've got free.

cfdisk /dev/hdc

Then you should have some area that says "Free Space" at the bottom of the list, if not... then its the 2Gb section that is probably labelled for something else, the menu is pretty clear, you just need to partition it for type "Linux" and then write the new partition table to disk. If you do not actually change any of the partition sizes, the odds are a couple thousand to 1 against that doing anything ugly to your existing partitions.

Hopefully... and this is a chunk of hope here, after Knoppix sees a Linux partiton its installer will be happy... if not, we might have to write a filesystem to it and try again... the bugginess with Read-Only your seeing was it mounting the NTFS partition (probably that first one) and trying to install to there. Linux only has read-only support NTFS (well, okay, there is write support too, but bugger if I'm ever gonna try and use it).

Cheers,

Finegan

ok, i did "cfdisk /dev/hdc" and got the same error message

should i make a linux ex2 partition in the free space on the internal hd???

Okay, now I'm confused... did Knoppix mount the partitions? because that would make fdisk a little unable to do its job. From what you've posted above, the drive has got to be hdc right? The exact same error message?

What's "dmesg | grep hd" give ya? That should be a list of just about everything on the IDE bus that could mildly be considered a hard drive.

Cheers,

Finegan

hmm that command doesnt work

oh and is there an easier way to get to the console than ctrl+alt+f4? cause when im done with my work there i always have to reboot and reload knoppix. it's annoying as..... heaven

ok i made a linux ext2 partition in the free space, and now when i go to knoppix-installer, there are much more options. it looks like it "happy" as you said before. that partition is known as hdc6.

ive got a few questions.

1. i currently use the windows xp bootloader thing (boot.ini i think) to choose wether i want the fast windows os or the normal os. if i install lilo on the mbr, will it overwrite that? how will it work? i just need some clarification
2. in the installer, it doesn't let me choose which partition to install to. all it shows is hdc6. this scares me a little. am i installing it to the right partition?

oh and i wouldn't have anyways, but when i tried installing knoppix it gave me an error.

umm i converted the ex2 partition to an ex3, hoping that would work better

still i get the error when i try installing (this is the one i was talking about in my last post):

"Error: Formatting of failed. Some messages from mkfs.ext3: Usage: mkfs.ext3 [-c|-t|-l filename]

and then there's a bunch of parameters that i dont care to write, and which i think are not needed

thanks for the help

That last bit is buggering weird, to answer the boot block thing, its going to write an INI file into the MBR, I think it should work fine if you can get to that stage, I always just use Lilo for dual boots.

What's the exact error its horking on the ext3 mkfs bit? It might be that the filesystem is already mounted so it cant run mkfs on it... maybe? Check df -h before running the installer, still kinda in the dark as Knoppix isn't really the kingmost installer out there as it tries to overaccomodate for too much.

Cheers,

Finegan

umm i just got in trouble at school. i may be banned from the computer at home and at school for a little while

i'll get back to you when i can (in about a week at least)

what i get when i do df -h:

FileSystem Size Avaliable Mount
/dev/root 3.4 M 1.1 M /
/dev/scd0 700 M 0 /cdrom
/dev/cloop 1.9 G 0 /knoppix
/ramdisk 396 M 396 /ramdisk

didnt i already give that to you? in too much of a rush to check......

thanks for the help once more