Live CDs fail with -- Failed to mount /dev/sr0 -- ERROR: cannot find booted cdrom device.
J G Miller
If I try booting various live CDs (ArchLinux, DreamLinux, KNOPPIX etc)
they all fail with a message similar to
Failed to mount /dev/sr0
ERROR: cannot find booted cdrom device
during the booting of the kernel.
Can anybody please advise what is the workaround solution for this problem.
And the problem is not the CD media, because taking the CD-ROM to an
older machine eg P3B with IDE CD-ROM and booting, results in no
errors and a fully functional live CD running system.
Sydney
pan.2009.09...@yoyo.ORG...
J G Miller
> is it the CD-Rom reader ?
No it is not the DVD/CD reader because if it was the system would not
even start to boot off the CD, go through the GRUB procedure, and then
boot the initrd.
Java Jive
motherboard has one of the chipsets that does not translate
transparently between IDE and SATA. In such circumstances, one needs
to install W2k using an ancillary floppy with the boot drivers
installed, and a TXTSETUP.OEM file to tell Setup about them.
It sounds to me as though the Live CD either hasn't got SATA drivers
at all or, perhaps more likely, they weren't included in the kernel.
It might be that there are boot parameters you can give to get round
the problem. Alternatively, you might be able to use a newer distro,
or rebuild the kernel for the Live CD on another machine, though the
latter would be a crashing bore (perhaps literally?) and would rather
nullify the purpose of a Live CD!
On Mon, 7 Sep 2009 21:05:43 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG>
wrote:
> I have an ASUS P5B motherboard to which is connected a Plextor SATA DVD-RW.
>
> If I try booting various live CDs (ArchLinux, DreamLinux, KNOPPIX etc)
> they all fail
[snip]
> And the problem is not the CD media, because taking the CD-ROM to an
> older machine eg P3B with IDE CD-ROM and booting, results in no
> errors and a fully functional live CD running system.
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J G Miller
> It sounds to me as though the Live CD either hasn't got SATA drivers at
> all or, perhaps more likely, they weren't included in the kernel.
If the necessary SATA driver was not available to the initrd, it would not
be able to start booting the kernel image on the LiveCD, would it?
> It might be that there are boot parameters you can give to get round the
> problem.
Hence why I posted my question to the news group.
> Alternatively, you might be able to use a newer distro
I have tried the latest versions of live distributions of ArchLinux,
DreamLinux, Knoppix, and MintLinux.
In fact, I have installed the MintLinux via another machine to an external
drive and this boots fine and sees the CD/DVD and mounts the device without
problem.
In doing a web search I have come across other users with similar hardware
who have also experienced the same problems of booting DreamLinux and the
bootup procedure failing to start from the CD because the bootup procedure
failed to "recognize" the CD drive from which it was booting. Sadly the
maintainers of that distribution have failed to answer the request for
help from two posters on that issue.
Java Jive
think yes, because of the way a bootable CD-ROM works. To boot a
CD-ROM, a bootable floppy image is made part of the CD. This is read
from the CD by the BIOS (note), mapped as a virtual drive to B: (in
DOS speak) and booted. The floppy image is then responsible for
getting the Live CD up and running. The reason that the boot process
begins, but stalls, may be that the BIOS part works, but the Linux
part doesn't, for the reasons I described.
On Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:49:49 +0000 (UTC), J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG>
wrote:
>
> If the necessary SATA driver was not available to the initrd, it would not
> be able to start booting the kernel image on the LiveCD, would it?
======================================
Leon Whyte
I just bought a new HP laptop and have a problem like this.
I put a working CD in the drive and it boots just fine but when the install
starts to search for the CD with the install software, it can't find it.
This happened with several CDs. I looked at the CDs and they were all ones I
have had around for a bit so I decided it was the fault of the disks and not
necessarily the drive. I have to tell you that these same CDs work properly in
another computer that is about 6 months old and has the exact same drive.
Curiouser and curiouser.
--
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
< running Linux >
J G Miller
> I put a working CD in the drive and it boots just fine but when the install
> starts to search for the CD with the install software, it can't find it.
> This happened with several CDs.
Thanks for confirming that I am not the only one with this problem.
I think the problem is something to do with the way particular distributions
try to mount and/or refer to the mounted root partition on the CD/DVD,
which I think is done via a fuse file system, because as well as having
the read only CD/DVD as root, they also need a writeable file system
to mount things and put thing in /tmp.
David W. Hodgins
> I put a working CD in the drive and it boots just fine but when the install
> starts to search for the CD with the install software, it can't find it.
This is caused by using a sata controller that doesn't have a kernel
module available for it, in the live cd's initrd.
Trying a newer live cd release may work.
Regards, Dave Hodgins
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