Basic Linux 3.5 on Laptop-- CD-ROM not found... fstab?

DrivethroughV8 · 11-08-2007, 03:09 AM

Hello,

My name is Chris and I am new to the forum.
It is really is neat that there are forums like this... Otherwise, I'd never accomplish anything!

Alright, here's my situation.

I have been working on a project to restore a older laptop (Toshiba Tecra 740CDT) to its former glory by installing Linux on it.

The hard drive was wiped clean about a year ago, and I just pulled it out of storage. The laptop's bios does not allow boot to usb or cd.

My only option that I could think of was to use a bootable floppy distro of linux, I went with the only thing I could find that would work, Basic Linux 3.5, which fits on two 1.4MB floppy disks and runs off of the laptop's ram.

Accomplishing the task of installing Basic Linux 3.5 was a challenge for me, but I did it, and Basic Linux is up and running, working great.

Now... for the next step in my project...

Of course, Basic Linux is not what I want to keep. the reason I installed it was so I could mount my CD-ROM so I could install a better distro, I've decided on xubuntu, since I have ubuntu experience, and it should run nicely on the older laptop.

now, my problem is with the CD-ROM (? fstab?) Basic Linux recognizes my CD-ROM, but when I try to mount, I get this--

Code:

/<#>mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
mount: Mounting /dev/cdrom on /mnt/cdrom failed: No such device

I found out, through google, and the linuxquestion's wiki, that I need to do something with fstab. I can't figure out how to edit or access fstab. I know where it is, /etc/vfstab but I can't cd to it... which makes me think it is a file, not a folder, and I have no clue how to edit a file in the terminal.

I also tried the following:

Code:

/<#>dmesg

And I get a whole lot of information, which I don't want to write down unless necessary. The main peice of info that I think is relevant is

Code:

hdc: TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-1202B, ATAPI CDROM drive

SO, what I THINK I need to do is edit the fstab to include my cd-rom--

Code:

/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0

The above is also from the linuxquestions wiki.

Is this correct?
If so, how the heck do I access the fstab file?

Thanks so much,

Chris

Nylex · 11-08-2007, 03:20 AM

Any (console) text editor should do and you'll want to run "editor /etc/fstab", replacing "editor" with your editor of choice, obviously. I haven't been able to find out which editors Basic Linux comes with, so try nano, pico, emacs, vi and see which works.

mrrangerman · 11-08-2007, 05:42 AM

Use vi to edit here is about a 25min basic tutorial on vi.

bibh_lnxq · 11-08-2007, 05:41 PM

Re your failed command

"/<#>mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
mount: Mounting /dev/cdrom on /mnt/cdrom failed: No such device"

Now, given that the CD-ROM is recognised (as /hdc),

You can also try

#mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /mnt

DrivethroughV8 · 11-09-2007, 04:27 AM

Hi Nylex, mrrangerman, bibh_lnxq, thanks for your replies.

Thanks to you guys, I found out that bl_3 has vi.

I opened it up and edited fstab.

My fstab file now looks like this:

Code:

/dev/ram0  /     ext2  defaults  1  1
/dev/fd0  /fd    msdos noauto    0  0
none      /proc  proc  defaults  0  0
/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0

I saved it with :wq and restarted,
and I still get the same error,

Code:

mount: Mounting /dev/cdrom on /cdrom failed: No such device

also,

Code:

#mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /mnt

gives the same error.

mrrangerman · 11-09-2007, 05:46 AM

Quote:

/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0

Ok when you added this entry to your fstab the part I put in bold text does this directory exist? If not you need to add it mkdir /cdrom

DrivethroughV8 · 12-01-2007, 04:11 AM

Hello again,

Thank you mrangerman for your reply.

Sorry I have been late with my getting back to you, I've been a little discouraged about this whole project so I've been avoiding it, but I really want to make it work, and this weekend I jumped back into the effort.

I took a look to see whether or not /cdrom exists, and it does exist.

I am once again stumped!

Again (Maybe it will help?) here is the entry in my fstab

Code:

/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0

here is the mount command I enter and the error

Code:

/<#>mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /cdrom

Code:

mount: Mounting /dev/cdrom on /cdrom failed: No such device

DrivethroughV8 · 12-17-2007, 10:34 AM

I think I am going to go about doing this a different way, since I really don't know what I am doing in basic linux. I am going to try to get a copy of windows, install it, which should make the CDROM usable, and also bootable. I will go from there and install linux.

Thank you all for your help, sorry I couldn't get it to work through basic linux!