2.12 ran OK for months, then stopped loading

Message

mwestlund · #1 Post by **mwestlund** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 06:39

I have been running Puppy 2.12 for months with no issues on my IBM Thinkpad T22. I had a similar issue many many months ago. It was suggested I use [puppy irqpoll] at boot and it has worked great ever since! I love Puppy and I use it more then 80% of all my OS needs.

Today, I added text-to-speech Festival server and during that current session it worked fine. After dinner, I went back on to work on it more to figure out how get it to work with programs. (I am a developer moving to Linux.) And everything then died....

I have tried to boot with Puppy a dozen times and get the following:

Loading vmlinuz.....................
Loading initrd.gz..............
Ready.
Uncompressing Linux... OK, booting the kernel.
[Then it hangs...]

When I reboot into Windows 98SE, everything is OK in Windows.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Mark

muggins · #2 Post by **muggins** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 07:25

so it's a co-exist, (AKA frugal), install? which boot manager are you using to boot it?

mwestlund · #3 Post by **mwestlund** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 07:37

I'm booting off the CD-ROM for Puppy 2.12 and HD for Windows. When I turn on the laptop, I can push F12 and select which boot device. When I select HD, Win98 boots OK. When I select boot from CD-ROM, I get what I listed above. Like I said, it has worked like a charm for months and I have been using it daily. I just want Puppy back... -Mark

John Doe · #4 Post by **John Doe** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 07:48

Clean the cd with luke warm water and a mild liquid hand or dish soap. Use a non-abrasive cloth (cotton, not paper towel) or fingers to wipe it. Use back and forth motions, not circular. Let air dry or dry with cotton cloth.

Test.

If that doesn't work, use 'puppy pfix=ram' at the boot prompt and see if you can boot at all (this will disable your saved session data).

Report back.

mwestlund · #5 Post by **mwestlund** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 08:01

Thanks John for the suggestions, but nothing changed after cleaning and trying the suggested boot arguments. -Mark

Lobster · #6 Post by **Lobster** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 08:52

Check if the CD is working on boot by typing
"puppy pfix=ram"

No doubt you have copied pup_212.sfs to the HD which also speeds up loading? Maybe do that again (/mnt/home)

If you can wait a few days the second beta (I am using the first) will allow you to upgrade, in case there has been some corruption on the CD. I have used Festival and consider it stable.

Spend the next few days in Windows SE

"I was aiming to release 2.13BETA2 on New Years Day. So if you have anything by the 31st Dec I'll put it in." Barry
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy213

Hopefully the final version will be available a few days after that.
It is a very nice release

Sage · #7 Post by **Sage** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 09:07

BIOS changed? Tried cheat codes?
The way to resurrect CD is not quite as you'd expect. Remember that the data tracks are underneath the label side. If there's a problem, first try spray coating the label with a thin film of matt black paint (presuming most folks won't be able to precipitate a silver mirror over it). The underside can be brutally reconditioned, but this is only necessary if very deep scratches are causing laser deflection by refraction and internal reflection. In this case, abrade the surface with VIM and soap - these provide a magnesia abrasive (the 'softest' ) in a surfactant matrix. This needs to be repeated until a uniform dull surface results. This can then be successively repolished with acrylic polish, extensively used in the trade for cleaning up plastics used on consumer durables. For music CDs, best to burn individual tracks to HD, doctor any really bad ones with a suitable music editing utility and burn them back onto a fresh CD. All of these techniques involve disproportionate time and effort, so is only worthwhile for irreplaceable masterpieces.

Rickrandom · #8 Post by **Rickrandom** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 09:24

Or just burn another CD in Windows, assuming that's how you did it in the first place?

The Puppy CD won't know that he's a clone of the previous Puppy, and will still read your save file on the HD (assuming it isn't multi-session).

Or did I miss that you'd already tried that?

Or check the CD in a different PC?

muggins · #9 Post by **muggins** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 09:57

it seems a scratched &/or discombobulated cdrom is the most likely culprit. you could check by booting the cdrom on another computer, if you have one available.

it's always good practice to backup your pup_save.sfs file, so that you don't have to reconfigure things etc. Also, since you've got win98 on your hard disk, why not try a frugal, (co-exist), install, as puppy will cause no problems to your windows install, it's the easiest puppy to upgrade, and you don't need to boot from cdrom.

mwestlund · #10 Post by **mwestlund** » Sat 30 Dec 2006, 22:59

Many thanks again for all the support. I have tried all the suggestions and nothing has changed. I can boot Puppy with the same CD on two of my desktops OK. But not on my laptop which I use daily for that on the go stuff.

In addition, I have dial-up at home and access T1/T3 lines at work and libraries with my laptop. So, without it, I'm much less productive as well as home based instead of the cafe where I am more productive! Any other thoughts would be very much appreciated. I miss my Puppy. Really... -Mark

John Doe · #11 Post by **John Doe** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 00:56

I'm starting to think it's the drive.

Try cleaning the laser (that glass diode in the cd tray) with a q-tip or cotton ball.

It may just be dead. I replaced one once that worked off and on, but was basically just broken for all intents and purposes.

Sit Heel Speak · #12 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 01:26

Is your T22 like my T21, in having the internal-docking CD/DVD player? Could it be, that one of the pins inside the dock, or on the player, is dirty?

Can you play an ordinary DVD, or access an ordinary data CD, on it?

mwestlund · #13 Post by **mwestlund** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 01:55

Yes, my kids have been playing CD-ROM games on it all day and even watch a movie using Win98. I tried it again after they were done, and it still hangs at the same place as I first listed. Again, I really appreciate all the support. -Mark

Sit Heel Speak · #14 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 04:18

Just to be clear: when you temporarily rename pup_save.3fs that you added Festival to, so it has no pup_save at all, the live CD still won't boot? And yet, it will boot on two other machines?

mwestlund · #15 Post by **mwestlund** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 05:10

Yes, that is correct. In fact I copied the pup_save.3fs file to another machine that has never had Puppy loaded on it and it all worked just fine with the same CD-ROM! Weird.

I did have IRQ issues before I tried [puppy irqpoll]. When I have entered [puppy irqpoll] for the past few months, everything has worked fine until the other day... It boots OK with Win98SE just fine. Could there be a IRQ issue or boot loader issue? I'm not an expert in GRUB and MBR stuff. Again, I really appreciate all the advice. -Mark

Sit Heel Speak · #16 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 05:39

mwestlund wrote:Yes, that is correct..Could there be a IRQ issue or boot loader issue? I'm not an expert in GRUB and MBR stuff. Again, I really appreciate all the advice. -Mark

I myself have only just tonight finally gotten Puppy arranged up to where I can burn a live CD (actually DVD) with it. So I'm not expert here.

At this stage my questions would be:

1. Starting GRUB from an autoexec.bat, with the line

c:\grub.exe --config-file=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst

and with menu.lst in c:\boot\grub as

timeout 5
default 0
title Puppy from disk
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 irqpoll PMEDIA=idehd PDEV1=hda1 PHOME=hda1
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.gz
boot

with vmlinuz, initrd.gz, and pup_2xx.sfs copied from the CD into C:\...will it boot, in other words will a straight frugal install start?

and

2. Starting Win98 Device Manager, is anything amiss?

Software should not have burned anything new on the CD --er, that IS just a player in your T22, not a burner, right?

muggins · #17 Post by **muggins** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 06:27

also, did you try the making a smartbootmanager floppy & booting with it? and, if so, what were the results?

John Doe · #18 Post by **John Doe** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 06:33

Quick tip, in 2.xx you can leave out this part " PDEV1=hda1 PHOME=hda1 " all 2.xx needs is the "PMEDIA=" (obviously with your choice and all other config info).

mwestlund · #19 Post by **mwestlund** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 07:24

OK, this is where I get into trouble. Is the c:\grub come with DOS? If not, where/how do I get it? -Mark

Sit Heel Speak · #20 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sun 31 Dec 2006, 07:34

Get Grub for DOS at

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=104188

Scroll down a ways. Current version is

grub_for_dos-0.4.2.zip

but I'm still using 0.4.1 and it works OK.

Unzip it to a temp directory (in Win98). Put grub.exe in c:\ and the rest goes in a \boot subdir.

The other variety, WinGRUB, is for installing GRUB to the MBR which is unnecessary unless you are on an NTFS filesystem.

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

2.12 ran OK for months, then stopped loading

2.12 ran OK for months, then stopped loading