I've tried about 6 different Live CD versions and only 1 loaded correctly. The one I would really like to get figured out is Knoppix 6.2. Neither the DVD or CD version will load correctly. It will either load the gui then freeze or it will drop to a terminal prompt and display the message; could not mount disk to /mnt-system. Starting debugging shell
sh: cont access tty1 job control turned off. I have tried the cheat codes vga=0 and boot knoppix debug -b 3. The options make no difference other the debug screen stopping at the terminal window rather then the locked up gui.

In my experience, live CDs always work (on my 4Y old Vaio laptop).

Linux expects hardware to function as advertised, and is not forgiving.

You have not told us details of your hardware or how old it is.

First step: boot almost any live CD and run memtest-86 from the menu to check your RAM. Linux uses RAM much more than win does. It matters.

Second step: re-burn your installation CD/DVD at a slower speed (1x). Then try again.

Welcome to LQ!

The MB is a Asus a7a-266 with a AMD processor(I believe it is a 1.4ghz)
1 gig of ram. I have a geforce mx video card. I have 2 burners 1 is a lite-on the other is a asus. Both are DVD burners. I've burned at 2x(as low as nero would let it go. I also burned using cdrecord speed=2x. I"ve verified the md5 file. Nothing is working for me. If it makes a difference the debug mode stops dead in its tracks on a line that says; platform rtc_cmos: registered platform RTC device (no PNP device found). Most times it just stops as soon as it decompresses the system files right after the boot screen.
I've just installed Win2k with no problems so I think the memory should be good. Nimblex linux live cd works as well.

The other machine I have is a Asus A7V-333 MB. It has 2 gig of ram and a XFX nvidia geforce 7800gt video card. Processor is a dual core AMD 4400. I can not get Knoppix to boot on this machine either. Neither the DVD or CD version work.

Did you try failsafe at boot or as boot option?

Yea I've tried the suggested options on the cheat codes wiki. No difference when using failsafe

Are errors on each distro similar?

Might be worth is to run memtest, almost all live cd's have memtest as choice at boot line option.


It might be that you need to reset bios settings to failsafe or default.

It is also possible that there is some computers with non-linux tested hardware from factory. It could run windows all day but not linux or another OS as the timings and circuits used are different.

memtest shows no problems. I'm using Ubuntu on the faster computer to type this on. It just will not work with the live cds. With Knoppix it will load the gui then stop. It errors because it can't find /mnt/system...

Reset the bios to no effect.