I inserted knopix into my moms dell's cd drive. It loaded, then it gave me a bunch of errors so I removed the disk, and shut down. Then i started back up. and now i get a black screen and her moniter's light keeps blinking.

Ouch. Thats not good, not good at all.

Does anything at all come up on the monitor when you turn it on? Anything at all?

I thought that was impossible since nothing is ever written to the hard drive. Can you get into BIOS or anything?

Don't panic mate, if it's failing before it shows anything on the screen, you probably haven't lost the data on your Hard drive.
I think this may be a graphics failure.
I had this problem on my Dell lattitude laptop, although it wasn't caused by Knoppix.
It's working fine now! Dells are very sensitive to any kind of Graphics driver error

But first, here are a few things we need to know to help you:

1: Does your computer POST? (Power on self test, the little beeping noise you should get when your computer starts up.)
If it does, as normal, then you're probably dealing with some kind of software error, BIOS or OS related.
If it doesn't, that means you've got a problem with your actual hardware.

2: What OS does your mum's computer run?

3: What bios are you using? If your dell desktop is anything like my Dell latitude, you'lll be using a proprietory Dell Bios, which will appear as a dell logo with a little progress bar underneth it. Does that load up?

4: When the computer boots up, if it posts, what noises does it make?
I know this one may seem a little silly, but the whole point of the beeps is that they are your last line of information if nothing works.

5: What model is your computer, and does it have any optional add ons?



If it does post but doesn't boot, the first thing to do is to slap some bootable media in the drive. If I were you, I'd opt for your windows CD. (Assuming you're running windows.)

If you've got a problem with the boot sector, windows should be able to fix it from Cd, provided you're running XP.


Likely causes of problems:

Graphics failure. Knoppix automatically boots to 1024x768 resolution. If your Pc can't handle that, it might have overloaded your graphics card or monitor. This often causes this sort of failure.

Processor Failure:
Unlikely, but possible. Computers are touchy things!

Memory Failure:
More likely than processor failure, but still a fairly remote possibility..

Hard Drive Failure:
Much more likely than processor failure or memory failure. knoppix may have inavertantly cause your Hard disk to become damaged in some way.
If this is the case, then bootable media should work.

Post back with this info, and Im sure well all try to help you and see what we can do. I may be a newbie to Linux, but I've been a windows user long enough to encounter virtually every one of a windows PC's F*** ups!
Sam B

I had this problem on a dell desktop once, I unplugged the PC, left it for a minute then I plugged in the Dell and then booted up.

HTH

No beep

Its a dell 4550 desktop

I'll try unplugging. This sucks dude.

Yeah the unplugging suggestion is good...or at least waiting a few before you turn it back on. Computers can be finnicky sometimes.

now my only problem is my grandmother's new eithernet card. I accidently skipped the detection. Got a solution for that?

Should be ok....just as long as you got the drivers for it.

thats the problem....the cd doesnt work. Where can i get em?

Here's a great site for any drivers:
http://www.driverguide.com/

Im glad it sorted itself up. But I think you may still have a problem waiting for you if it misbehaves like this. I would advise you to back up your hard drive ASAP.
Hey, it can't hurt, right?
Sam B