(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I have a live CD that works on my Dell desktop, but I really want to use Puppy on my old laptop. I am new to Linux and have just taken an introductory course in Linux.
When I try to boot on my laptop I get an error message:

Disk error BB, AX=4280, Drive 82

or

isolinux: Disk error 01, AX=4200, Drive 82
Boot failed: Press a key to retry.

I have installed max ram for this system, 256MB. I have tried using some of the boot scripts, but no luck. Can someone help?

Since you know that the CD is good, the most likely explanation is that the optical drive in your old laptop has failed. Does it have a working OS like Windows that you can use to test the drive?

Windows 98 SE is installed on this system. I just ran the diagnostics from Dell and they reported everything working "optimally."

But can it read CD's?

Yes, it's a Toshiba that reads data and audio CDs. No write capability. The diagnostics found no problems with it.

I burned the CD on my desktop system that is running Windows XP, dual-booted with Linux on a separate HD.

does it have a floppy?

Let's try this again. Boot up Windows. Insert the Puppy CD. Open Drive D: or whatever drive letter the CD drive is. Can you see the files on the CD?

Yes it has a floppy...and yes I can see the files in Windows.

boot.cat, boot.msg, help.msg, initro.gz, isolinux.bin, isolinux.cfg, logo.16, lupu_501.sfs, vmlinuz

OK. Then the next approach is to use a boot floppy that can launch Puppy off the Live CD. You will set the BIOS boot priority to the diskette drive and boot with both disks inserted.

There are a number of Puppy boot diskettes around. The first one I would try is "grubflop" from here.

Sorry for the time lapse, I'm still learning to work with archived files. For grubflop, do the unarchived files both go on the floppy?

If you are working from Linux, extract the file grubflop.img and burn the diskette with the command: If working from Windows, use the enclosed program rawrite2.exe

In the event that this method won't boot your CD, your next option is the Wakepup diskette. There's a version of it here.

Thanks for your patience and guidance. Puppy 5.01 is working on my laptop, and it really flies! It even recognizes my USB flash drive that windows never did.

Glad to help.

Just out of curiosity and for the benefit of other newcomers, what procedure did you use?

I reburned the CD from my linux system, simplyMEPIS. I should have done that first, the laptop was reading an error that my PC wasn't picking up.