Linux?????

[xocal]

xocal
Senior Member

Invalid settings in msdos files.

I have recently tried to install win98se over an existing installation, got a lot of messages saying "Because you have interrupted setup, the folowing file cannot be found", but in my ignorance, I chose to skip these in the belief that they would be picked up from the original system upon restart but I have come a cropper in that I cannot get windows to start.
I have tried using a boot disk, and have managed to get through /scanreg/restore, but when I remove startup disk and try to restart, I get a black screen which rapidly fills up with the messages "Invalid setting in msdos system files". the screen then changes to show the windows 98 screen in full colour, but with the text "Getting ready to run Windows for the first time"
So obviously I have made a cock-up of it !
Any suggestions on how to rectify the situation would be welcome!
__________________
xocal


jay
New Member

Hiya,

Boot off the win98 CD and choose option 2 to start computer with cd rom support. You will eventually get a command prompt. At the prompt type the following pressing enter after each one

cd c:\windows
ren win.com win.old

md win98

cd d:\win98 (or whatever drive letter your cd is on)
copy *.* c:\win98
cd c:\win98
setup /is /ie

Run through the setup again. It should fly through it and remember all prevoius settings. If the copy above of all the CAB files onto the local hard drive went ok then you shouldn't have any more file copy errors. If it didn't go ok, get a new CD

05:29 PM
jay
New Member

Doh!

Missed something. Before you type "md win98" you need to type..

cd c:\

If you do it the way I said above it will create the win98 folder inside the existing windows folder.



Hiya,

Boot off the win98 CD and choose option 2 to start computer with cd rom support. You will eventually get a command prompt. At the prompt type the following pressing enter after each one

cd c:\windows
ren win.com win.old

md win98ren win.com win.old

cd d:\win98 (or whatever drive letter your cd is on)
copy *.* c:\win98
cd c:\win98
setup /is /ie

Run through the setup again. It should fly through it and remember all prevoius settings. If the copy above of all the CAB files onto the local hard drive went ok then you shouldn't have any more file copy errors. If it didn't go ok, get a new CD


Jay :-)
Thanks Jay, but I can't boot off win98 cd even tho' it has priority in setup!
Can boot off Floppy ok and end up with command prompt A:\
However can't get past "ren win.com win.old" as doesn't recognise win.com!
Any thoughts?
__________________
xocal

Jintan
May need a new copy of msdos.sys before you can load from the cd. At the A:\> prompt, type
sys C: (hit enter)
After the files have transferred, reboot, load the cd, then at the A:\prompt type
setup D: (or the CD-Rom designated drive letter - will be at least E if the bootdisk loaded ramdrive).
__________________
CTH Cyber Safety


jay
New Member

if you have the prompt a:\ then you need to type the following

cd c:\
cd windows
ren win.com win.old

proceed from there.

Jay :-)

xocal
Senior Member
You say "May need a new copy of msdos!"
Is that supposed to load with sys c: command?
Or is it supposed to load from the cd?
I have searched the win98 cd on another pc and found "old msdos" on the tools folder.
I have managed to get to the setup process and scandisk reports no problems with the hard disk, but it when it gets to loading windows98 files, I get the message "You have interrupted the process", but I have touched nothing.
Thanks for your help, but may get it to a repair shop!
__________________
xocal


Jintan
The "sys" command transfers these files from the bootdisk:
command.com
io.sys
msdos.sys
drvspace.bin
The gameplan was to replace any boot files that may have become corrupted, which may have interfered with running setup from the CD-ROM.
__________________

xocal
Senior Member

I've just about had it with this problem, as I appear to have win98 loaded but can't boot up beyond a screen which just hangs and tells me it is waiting for win98se to load!
I have been given a present of a Linux system disk and have often wondered what it would be like to have this system working.
Does anyone have experience of this system and if so would they think it a good idea to format the existing drive and instal the Linux instead of windows and could he/they advise upon best way to do it?
__________________
xocal

Miz
Moderator

You'll have better luck with Linux questions in the Linux Forum. I imagine they'll be happy to help convert you into a Linux user.


So is there anyone prepared to lead me through the Linux experience.??????
xocal

[Baldur McQueen]

What Linux system (distribution) do you have? The Linux systems are getting to be pretty easy to set up - and, with a little luck - might recognize everything on your computer. If your distro is fairly new - you might be surprized on how easy this is.

The older distributions are somewhat more difficult, so I would not recommend those to someone who is beginning his journey without Bill Gates :-)

[xocal]

Originally Posted by Baldur McQueen

What Linux system (distribution) do you have? The Linux systems are getting to be pretty easy to set up - and, with a little luck - might recognize everything on your computer. If your distro is fairly new - you might be surprized on how easy this is.

The older distributions are somewhat more difficult, so I would not recommend those to someone who is beginning his journey without Bill Gates :-)

I know virtually nothing about Linux, apart from owning some shares in Lnux!
The disk I have tells me that it's "Knoppix Linux ver 3.2" which I was made a present of in April of 2003, and I've seen so much discussion about it that I promised myself that I would try it someday! so maybe now is the opportune moment to do so, with hopefully some guidance from the folks on this Forum site???
Incidentally I use Mozilla Firefox, which is, I understand, part of the family, and the laptop is an IBM 570 with ultrabase.

[Baldur McQueen]

Hi xocal

This is acctually a really good thing. Knopix Linux is a so called "live" distribution. That means - that Linux does not really get installed on your system.....you just start up the computer with the CD in the CD drive and it "fakes" an install.

You can use it just as any other Linux system (even tough there are some possibilities that are not present), but you must always start the computer up with the CD in you want to boot to Linux.

This way - you can play around with Linux a little and see if you like it. If - after playing around with it - you can either download a distribution or buy one from Linux CD (http://www.linuxcd.org) at very low prices. I bought my SUSE 9.3 from them and am extremely happy with it.

So - just throw in the CD and start the computer - the "installation" should be without any problems. It's also worth pointing out - that Knopix is a very valuable tool to access your files if your current OS has gone bad and you can't start it up.

Let me know how things went - and post again if you deside to get a installable Linux distro and need some help regarding that. I'm no expert when it comes to Linux - but could maybe point you in the right direction.

[xocal]

Originally Posted by Baldur McQueen

Hi xocal

This is acctually a really good thing. Knopix Linux is a so called "live" distribution. That means - that Linux does not really get installed on your system.....you just start up the computer with the CD in the CD drive and it "fakes" an install.

You can use it just as any other Linux system (even tough there are some possibilities that are not present), but you must always start the computer up with the CD in you want to boot to Linux.

This way - you can play around with Linux a little and see if you like it. If - after playing around with it - you can either download a distribution or buy one from Linux CD (http://www.linuxcd.org) at very low prices. I bought my SUSE 9.3 from them and am extremely happy with it.

So - just throw in the CD and start the computer - the "installation" should be without any problems. It's also worth pointing out - that Knopix is a very valuable tool to access your files if your current OS has gone bad and you can't start it up.

Let me know how things went - and post again if you deside to get a installable Linux distro and need some help regarding that. I'm no expert when it comes to Linux - but could maybe point you in the right direction.

Many thanks! Am on a few days hols at moment, but will try it out tomorrow and let you know how I get on.

[xocal]

Quote
"It's also worth pointing out - that Knopix is a very valuable tool to access your files if your current OS has gone bad and you can't start it."

I am pleased to say that it did load with no problems!
However I can't find a way to access any files from the Windows O/S!
Can you advise if that is possible, and if you could advise how to do so.
As you can gather from my original posts, I have a problem there, and would be grateful for any advice on how to solve ot through Linx!!

[DaveQB]

If you havent any important files on your hard disk, i'd say take the plunge and install a Linux distribution onto your hard disk.

If the answer is yes to the above question [do you have important files on your hard disk currently ? ) then the Knoppix CD can help you with that.

Never used Knoppix myself so not sure how it goes about mounting your partitions so i will cover all basis.

Once Knoppix is up, the easiest way for us to proceed is for you to find a Terminal Emulator (MS-DOS for Linux basicly)

If you follow through the Kmenu (bottom left hand corner) you may find Term Emulators in:
Kmenu > System > Terminals
or
Kmenu > More Applications > Terminals
or
Kmenu > Terminals

if none of the above just poke around or alternatively go:

Kmenu > Run Command

type: konsole
<enter>

once open, see who are you by typing
whoami <enter>

if reponses is root, then we are right to proceed, if another user name then type
su <enter>
to become the root user (master, admin user that has total control of system)

once root type:
mount <enter>
that will list all mounts on your system.

What your looking for in that list is something like
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c
or
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/win_c

If unsure your welcome to post here result of mount here.

If nothing like that exists then your partitions arent mounted.

So we first need to find out how our partitions are setup

try:
fdisk -l <enter>

This will show you how your disk(s) are layed out.

then we can do something like this,
cd /mnt <enter>
mkdir a <enter>

And then for example to mount /dev/hda1 (first partition on primary master hard disk)
mount /dev/hda1 a <enter>

Which just means mount /dev/hda1 in the folder a

If successful, list whats there with
ls a <enter>


This is a start for you.

Report back how you go, use Google as much as possible and chat rooms such as #linuxhelp which is on irc.freenode.net

HTH

[xocal]

Dave,
I appreciate the time you have spent explaining what could be donw with the Knoppix CD, but, to be honest I don't have the experience to make best use of it at this stage.
I have taken the plunge and fdisked the HD with two partitions, literally deviding the original HD into two, with the intention of trying out a dual boot arrangement at some stage, but meanwhile am at the stage of trying to format these drives, but am having a problem getting it done.
However I will trawl the Cyber site and will no doupt find the instructions given to some other amateur like myself!

[DaveQB]

No worries xocal

Just ask away man.

You want to format the 2 partition to fit Linux on there ??

There are many different ways to format a hard drive for Linux, unlike for Windows. You can mount any partition into any folder so the contents is physically on a separate disk.

My personal choice for formatting is [I'll add the windows partition there too]

hda1 = FAT32 [ XP ]
hda2 = Ext3 [/ ]
hda5 = Extended partition housing the rest of the partitions
hda6 = linux swap
hda7 = Ext3 [ /home ]

That way if you want to format your root [/] partition, you wont lose your home folders and info.

Just use cfisk to partition all, mke2fs -J to format the Ext3 partitions, mkswap for the swap partitions and let Windows format hda1 when you install.

HTH