Zipslack Boot Problems...
 

I downloaded ZipSlack from the Slackware 8.1 directory and it is giving me errors. Heres a timeline of events...(I know the images are fuzzy so don't complain)

1: The BIOS does the POST(Power On Self Test), finds the IDE drives and asks me for my password.

http://webpages.charter.net/tknott/ziprobs/1.png

2: The BIOS gives the system summery and tries to boot from the CD-ROM drive(and fails) and goes on to boot the HD.

http://webpages.charter.net/tknott/ziprobs/2.png

3: I enter into the Windows boot menu and choose to boot into a comand prompt(which it does) and I go and boot linux(with the batch file included in zipslack.zip).

http://webpages.charter.net/tknott/ziprobs/4-5.png

4: Linux boots...

http://webpages.charter.net/tknott/ziprobs/6.png

5: I get a kernel panic

http://webpages.charter.net/tknott/ziprobs/7.png
(image is a reproduction)

Is there any way to get Zipslack to work?

You need to modify the batch file that was included in the zipslack. It contains many lines and I think the default is something about a scsi disk though. But it has been a long time since I have seen it. You basically remark the current line that is enabled and unremark the line that you need to use. The line you proably need would refer to /dev/hda1 I would think. However, the images you offered looked like you have done that.

The next issue would be where and how you extracted the zipslack. The directions are very explicit. I do not think that WinZip will do it correctly. You will need to use the old pkzip I think it was and it also needs an option or two as well for the structure to make sure everything is extracted correctly into a directory named linux. The directory name also appears to look correct in your images. It is the remaining structure that is probably the most in question at this point.

And finally, I do not know why the "<SNIP> Missing" is in the one image, but it would of been the translation of /dev/hda the hard disk I think you attempting to boot. If the kernel is not able to read the partitions and mount it correctly because of a disk manager or windows disk compression or something, then it will not be able to mount the root file system after booting, and thus provide a kernel panic.

I did modify the batch file to point to /dev/hda1 so that can't be the problem.

And WinZip didn't want to unzip it correnctly do I used the 7Zip File Manager(http://www.7-zip.org/)which unzipped it correctly so that also can't be the problem.

That <SNIP> Missing was in there because it scrolled too fast to capture the output(the images were so fuzzy because I was using TV-Output feature of my GFx card to record it onto a VHS tape; its not too surprising that the images weren't the highest quality). But that could be the problem.

I used to need to boot into safe mode or DOS to boot my Mandrake Linux for Windows ages ago.
Kernel panic was the error.

I've given up on Zipslack and moved on to try another mini-distro: BasicLinux 2.0(based on Slackware 7.1). I am currently trying to get it to boot off its own little 100 meg paritition(/dev/hda3) and it will mount it but it keeps giving me a VFS error about not being able to read from it or something(I know for a fact that it mentions 00:00 in there somewhere.) I already tried switching the kernel from the one that ships with it to the one in the /slackware-7.1/kernels/basic.i/ directory on the FTP server(which is *excruciatingly* slow(3 kbps DL speed) even on my 1500 megabits/second cable connection) and copied all the files from the ramdisk that it normally boots from to the /dev/hda3 partition and edited the batch file. (Will post more details later)