Unable to boot Slackware 12 disc

Mark Iszler · External Since: Jul 14, 2007 Posts: 1

Hi everyone,

I have been unable to boot the install discs for recent Slackware
versions (11 & 12) in my somewhat older machine. It is a Pentium 3 800
MHz (vintage 2000) Gateway brand computer. It sort of baffles me
because I have a copy of Slackware 10.1 that boots just fine. Also, the
Slackware 11 & 12 discs boot just fine in other (newer) computers.
The type of disc doesn't seem to make any difference either (DVD+R in
this case). For Slackware 11 I downloaded the first install CD image
and burned it to CD-R when I couldn't get the DVD to work. No luck
there either. The best that I can guess is that this computer's BIOS
just doesn't like something about the boot record written on these
discs. Was this somehow changed in recent versions of ISOLINUX?

Anyway, to get around this problem was relatively easy for Slackware
11 since I could write a boot disc image to a floppy and boot that
way. But since I can't do that for Slackware 12, I need to find an
alternative. First, I tried writing the sbttomgr.dsk to a floppy in
order to boot the DVD. No luck. It just gave me a terse error
message with a code that I don't remember now. My next attempt was
to use Loadlin by copying the desired kernel image and what I thought
was the correct ramdisk image (D:\isolinux\initrd.img) to a partition
on which I can boot DOS. I am using a loadlin parameter file with
the following entries:
bzImage
vga=0
root=/dev/ram
rw
initrd=initrd.img

When I run Loadlin I get the following messages and booting stops:
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
invalid compressed format (err=1)
UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
(1,0):ocfs2_fill_super:561 ERROR: superblock probe failed!
VFS: Cannot open root device "ram" or unknown-block(1,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
unknown-block(1,0)

Any help would be appreciated.

Mark Iszler

Henrik Carlqvist · External Since: Aug 07, 2005 Posts: 776

Mark Iszler <iszler RemoveThis @midrivers.com> wrote:
> I have been unable to boot the install discs for recent Slackware
> versions (11 & 12) in my somewhat older machine.

> It sort of baffles me because I have a copy of Slackware 10.1 that boots
> just fine. Also, the Slackware 11 & 12 discs boot just fine in other
> (newer) computers.

> Was this somehow changed in recent versions of ISOLINUX?

In the directory isolinux on the Slackware CDs and DVDs there is a file
README.TXT which explains how to create your own bootable iso image. For
Slackware 10.1 the command was:

mkisofs -o /tmp/slackware.iso \
-R -J -V "Slackware Install" \
-x ./bootdisks \
-x ./extra \
-x ./slackware/gnome \
-x ./pasture \
-x ./patches \
-x ./rootdisks \
-x ./source \
-x ./zipslack \
-hide-rr-moved \
-v -d -N -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \ -sort
isolinux/iso.sort \
-b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
-c isolinux/isolinux.boot \
-A "Slackware Install CD" .

For Slackware 12 the command was:

mkisofs -o /tmp/slackware-dvd.iso \
-R -J -A "Slackware Install" \
-hide-rr-moved \
-v -d -N \
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 32 -boot-info-table \ -sort
isolinux/iso.sort \
-b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
-c isolinux/isolinux.boot \
-V "SlackDVD" .

I think that the important difference is the value for the -boot-load-size
argument.

A little later in the README.TXT with Slackware 10.1 comes the following
text:

-8<----------------------------------------
Techincally the --boot-load-size should be a lot bigger, like 20 or so
in order to hold the isolinux.bin boot block. However, setting it to
4 causes it to load on more BIOSes. I don't know why, but I've had so
many people report this to me that I'm inclined to believe it. But, if
the resulting discs don't boot in your machine and you find that using
a more correct value here fixes it, please let me know! If it's going
to be broken for some BIOSes either way, I'd rather be correct.
-8<----------------------------------------

regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc1(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@localhost postmaster@localhost

Mark Iszler · External Since: Jul 15, 2007 Posts: 1

Henrik Carlqvist wrote:
>
> I think that the important difference is the value for the -boot-load-size
> argument.
>
> A little later in the README.TXT with Slackware 10.1 comes the following
> text:
>
> -8<----------------------------------------
> Techincally the --boot-load-size should be a lot bigger, like 20 or so
> in order to hold the isolinux.bin boot block. However, setting it to
> 4 causes it to load on more BIOSes. I don't know why, but I've had so
> many people report this to me that I'm inclined to believe it. But, if
> the resulting discs don't boot in your machine and you find that using
> a more correct value here fixes it, please let me know! If it's going
> to be broken for some BIOSes either way, I'd rather be correct.
> -8<----------------------------------------
>
> regards Henrik

I had never used mkisofs to create bootable iso images before so I
didn't understand many of the command line parameters used for that
purpose. Now I think I understand a little about -boot-load-size.
Your suggestion worked great. (By the way, I did use a value of 4.)

Thanks!

Mark Iszler

notbob · External Since: Jun 08, 2004 Posts: 792

On 2007-07-15, Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist.TakeThisOut@deadspam.com> wrote:

> -v -d -N -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \ -sort

> -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 32 -boot-info-table \ -sort

> I think that the important difference is the value for the -boot-load-size
> argument.

> Techincally the --boot-load-size should be a lot bigger, like 20 or so

As if this whole discussion isn't cryptic enough, what cockamamie
universe enables the logic that 20 is bigger than 32, so lets use 4?

nb ...I need coffee

Manuel Otto · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 43

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:40:31 -0600, Mark Iszler
<Mark.Iszler.DeleteThis@deadspam.com> wrote:

>Henrik Carlqvist wrote:
>>
>> I think that the important difference is the value for the -boot-load-size
>> argument.
>>
>> A little later in the README.TXT with Slackware 10.1 comes the following
>> text:
>>
>> -8<----------------------------------------
>> Techincally the --boot-load-size should be a lot bigger, like 20 or so
>> in order to hold the isolinux.bin boot block. However, setting it to
>> 4 causes it to load on more BIOSes. I don't know why, but I've had so
>> many people report this to me that I'm inclined to believe it. But, if
>> the resulting discs don't boot in your machine and you find that using
>> a more correct value here fixes it, please let me know! If it's going
>> to be broken for some BIOSes either way, I'd rather be correct.
>> -8<----------------------------------------
>>
>> regards Henrik
>
>
>I had never used mkisofs to create bootable iso images before so I
>didn't understand many of the command line parameters used for that
>purpose. Now I think I understand a little about -boot-load-size.
>Your suggestion worked great. (By the way, I did use a value of 4.)
>
>Thanks!
>
>Mark Iszler

Thanks from me too!

Took me quite a few wasted dvd's before I fount this topic.

I also used a value of -boot-load-size 4; -boot-load-size 32 did not
work on a 1999 machine, nor on an other machine with BIOS date April
2001.

This was the first time in 11 years of computing I experienced a
problem with bootable media on ANY machine.

I wonder if -boot-load-size 4 will NOT make it boot on some other
machines? Slackware 10.2 install cd just booted fine, why these
changes?

Manuel

Manuel Otto · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 43

On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:23:32 -0500, notbob <notbob.DeleteThis@nothome.com> wrote:

>On 2007-07-15, Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist.DeleteThis@deadspam.com> wrote:
>
>> -v -d -N -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \ -sort
>
>> -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 32 -boot-info-table \ -sort
>
>> I think that the important difference is the value for the -boot-load-size
>> argument.
>
>> Techincally the --boot-load-size should be a lot bigger, like 20 or so
>
>As if this whole discussion isn't cryptic enough, what cockamamie
>universe enables the logic that 20 is bigger than 32, so lets use 4?
>
>nb ...I need coffee

He said:

"Techincally the --boot-load-size should be a lot bigger (bigger then
4), like 20 (to be precise: 24) or so in order to hold the
isolinux.bin boot block".

32 didn't work for me, so I tried 4, and that did work.

Did a google search
http://www.google.com/search?q=boot-load-size&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

And the third link:
http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php?t12660.html

says: "The '-boot-load-size' option gives the number of 512-byte
sectors to load from the boot image. This should be a multiple of 4".

But now it gets weird...

The isolinux.bin file on the DVD has a size of 10.932 (10.932 divided
by 512 = 21.3515625) bytes, so the value should by 24 (the first
multiple of 4 after 21).

I'm confused too. The only can think of that it is true that
cd's/dvd's on some machienes don't boot with high values like 32, but
that the burn software somehow works a round that?

Manuel