how to boot from bootable cds

kriidler · 07-05-2005, 07:34 PM

Hi

How does one boot from a bootable cd, like koppix/ubuntu live cd?

k

2 linux and

2 SUSE

stefan_nicolau · 07-05-2005, 07:37 PM

You must set your bios to boot from the cd before trying the hard drive.

kriidler · 07-05-2005, 07:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by stefan_nicolau
You must set your bios to boot from the cd before trying the hard drive.

Hi stefan_nicolau.
I had that done before I even loaded SUSE.

What happens when I reboot/start up with a Live CD is this: It shows on the cd drive that the cd is being read, then I get the Lilo screen from the harddrive, with only the default options. No "Boot from CD" or anything. I cant even boot from the SUSE installation CDs!

k

stefan_nicolau · 07-05-2005, 07:55 PM

Quote:

It shows on the cd drive that the cd is being read,

The bios setting seems fine...

Quote:

It shows on the cd drive that the cd is being read, then I get the Lilo screen from the harddrive, with only the default options. No "Boot from CD" or anything.

This is normal. LILO entries can't be modified by the bios, and the simple fact that LILO gets loaded means that cd boot failed.

Conclusion: the bios can't boot your cd

How have you created the bootable cd?

kriidler · 07-05-2005, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by stefan_nicolau
How have you created the bootable cd? [/B]

I've not personally created the boot cd, but I know that the boot cd does boot because this same pc booted from it before I loaded SUSE, when I still had Mandrake on and before Mandrake, Win XP.

Surely the SUSE install disks are bootable, that's how I loaded SUSE?

stefan_nicolau · 07-06-2005, 06:23 PM

Get smart boot manager from http://btmgr.webframe.org/ , install it to a floppy, boot the floppy, select 'boot from cdrom' in the menu.

kriidler · 07-07-2005, 02:21 PM

Hi stefan_nicolau.

I got smart boot manager and gave it a bash. Well, it looks like it's working from the floppy.

I see in the documentation that you can load it to the harddrive as well, do you think it's feasable?

k

stefan_nicolau · 07-07-2005, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Well, it looks like it's working from the floppy.

Great!

Quote:

I see in the documentation that you can load it to the harddrive as well, do you think it's feasable?

Of course, just follow the steps in the documentation.
BUT: SBM is just a chainloader. You will need a "real" bootloader (mainly LILO or GRUB) to boot your operating system. The most common setup involves installing SBM to the MBR and your bootloader to the linux partition's boot sector. However, I would not advise you to do this if you don't have a very good reason for removing LILO/GRUB from the MBR.

kriidler · 07-11-2005, 01:41 PM

Hi stefan_nicolau,

I trird SBM in the MBR and had to reinstall my OS. Yea, it worked fine for a while, but I think things went haywire when yast croked.

Currently I'm running Slackware, mainly because neither Mandake nor SuSE wanted to reinstall.

Anyways, I still think S MB is cool, I won't be deleting it soon.

Regards
K