Installation Problem
 

Hi, I've got a question related to SimplyMEPIS 6.

I downloaded the iso image and now want to install.

At the moment I can't get it to boot up.

Here's the spec of the machine:

Windows 98 SE

Pentuim(r) II Processor 400Mhz

128.0mb RAM


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When I try to boot I get this message:


"Can't startup file system Halting..."

any ideas...

p.s. tried booting with all the different kernel options..same result each time around

If you are connected to a network, disconnect before you try to boot from the CD. (Once I did that, I was able to boot into Linux. After I was in MEPIS and went for the Installation option, I reconnected my Etherlink cable and had no problem.)

You did change your BIOS preferences to boot first from CD, right? If not, reboot and use the special key (F8? F2?) on the very first screen after power-on to alter your boot up sequence. :)

Thanks for your reply:

I was connected via LAN at one end of machine but it wasn't connected to another machine.

I dissconnected but to no avail, I still got the same error message as before.

Also the boot order was set to cd ROM first.

Any other ideas..

Well, it's probably not your hardware. You meet the minimum specs on that. Also, I know you should be able to boot from the Live CD with W'98, since I did that myself.

It's possible (since we're dealing with Linux!) that the error message is actually related to the problem... So, what file system is running under your W98 installation? Do you have FAT32? Is your disk compressed? How much free space is left?

Btw, is that the very first message you see?

If your file system is relatively standard, and you have sufficient free space (at least 2G for install), you could try running W98 defrag first, then see if it will boot. The only other suggestion I have is, as the MEPIS.org site warns, they were doing all those revisions to the brand-new version in late July, so mirror sites might not have had good, complete versions. Did you check the hash (or byte count) when you did the d/l? Are you sure you have a good CD? (I ended up purchasing mine -- $14.95 includes shipping -- but when I tried to d/l it, the correct version was over 700Mg.)

Good luck!

Another thing to consider...
 

You may have already done this, if so, don't take offense. When you downloaded the .iso, did you check the md5 checksum before you burned it to a CD. It may be that your download is corrupt or incomplete. I'm not sure what is the best way to check this from Windows 98 (it's easy to do from KDE Konqueror, but I assume you don't already have an existing Linux installation elsewhere). Here is a link to a free download for software to do this in Windows from a command line:
http://www.fastsum.com/

You will also need to look on a site with the same download version (version of Linux) that you already downloaded for an md5 filesize. Preferably go to the site you downloaded it from. You then compare that number sequence with the one you get from the checksum software that you ran against your .iso file. If they are the same, then your .iso file is good. If they are not then you should attempt another download.

md5 checksum for Mepis 6
 

Here is the checksum off of one of the mirror sites for Simply Mepis 6.0.

f53d134974db0d24aa97925e3707ab4c SimplyMEPIS_6.0_i386.iso

Dear all:

Thanks for your support, I will need to first, check through the various suggestions that you have made, as some of the terminology/apps are new.

I'll post and let you know how I get on.

I downloaded the trial version of fast sum, I have installed it and performed the checksum on the iso image and the files on the bootable cd itself. Neither of the two results matched with the original checksum value below:

*original*

SimplyMEPIS_6.0_i386.iso --

f53d134974db0d24aa97925e3707ab4c

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Here are the results:
Bootable cd contents:


D:\about -- F03B014D4B0D230F2C695DA6D63B405D

D:\boot.catalog -- AB4B6365C6E605704E77519B865C0C24

D:\MCWL -- B943BCFEF145E829E51B74978D25F6BC

D:\mepis.ico -- 2D925F11B1B8CB501E3CA5787E8593DE

D:\version -- 7C3D7C4524206031C5E50AE66786E3E9
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here are the results of the iso after burning:

SimplyMEPIS_6.0_i386.iso -- D8F083EAC031C3954886E5FD849AF9BE

I'm not sure if these results from the *bootable cd* need to be aggregated in some way, not sure how this should be done, no feature listed in the fastsum sofware documentation. If anyone has any further ideas or suggestions please forward.

Fearing a bad burn I have begun to get another iso from a diff location

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