[SOLVED] BSOD on Booting a Remastered LiveCD

[oldschool]

ternor and djohnston,

You may be correct that NOKMSBOOT is the option -- I really don't know. However, the option I used was NODKMSBOOT and it worked fabulously.


oldschool

EDIT:  I just tried it with NOKMSBOOT and found that works, too.  Apparently, it doesn't matter which form you use, it just works.  Strange that an incorrect parameter would be accepted and stranger still that it would work!  Oh, well... I guess I'd rather be lucky than good.

[wharfhouse]

Interesting debate sparked over the week-end! 

Thanks to all of you for your input but I think this was further ahead that my original problem?  You guys are talking about installing off the LiveCD and making changes at the command line?  My problem was how to get the LiveCD to give me an output screen not installing from it, and on this note I've been experimenting...

1)  Tried my remaster LiveCD (DVD) on another machine and it boots to the end beautifully, with all my applications, desktop, settings etc. etc...  well impressed!!!

2)  From that result, it implies as I originally thought, the problem on my own desktop is that of the video driver and hence my original post. 

3)  Now I've seen the end result, this also raises another question... where was the icon or menu item "Install PCLinuxOS" which I expected if I wanted to re-install? or can it only be done at boot time when it was one of the Grub screen options?

4)  Prior to trying it out on another machine (with success  ), thinking that possibly it was a problem with the original ISO or the burning of it, I reproduced the ISO but with the MD5 check option.  When done I ran a mediacheck on it which it passed.  I then burned it with GnomeBaker onto a DVD then ran another mediacheck on the burned disk which also passed!

5)  Came to boot... wouldn't even start to boot!  Reburned it again this time using Brasero, ran mediacheck which it passed, booted it and this time got as far as ISOLINUX etc................................................... then nothing!

6)  I am now completely confused why burning with different applications can have so many different results, all of them failing!  The one that now works was actually burned (dare I say?) using Nero!  (I was working in Windows that day).

Food for thought!?  Looking forward to your comments. 

[Just17]

were all the pieces of media by the same manufacturer and from the same batch?

were all burned using the same burner and at the same speed?

there are a number of variables which might affect the burning in addition to the OS and application used for the purpose. 

[wharfhouse]

Hi Just 18; yes these were all Verbatim DVD+RW's from a pack and, as I say, tried Brasero, GnomeBaker, SimpleBurn and of course, in Windows... Nero all at 4x.  I did try 2x but Brasero & GnomeBaker kept defaulting to 4x!

Anyway, the point is I've got one that clearly works on another PC and the question still stands if there's any way I can remaster the ISO with the correct video drivers so I haven't got the BSOD on my desktop! 

[Just17]

Hi Just 18; yes these were all Verbatim DVD+RW's from a pack and, as I say, tried Brasero, GnomeBaker, SimpleBurn and of course, in Windows... Nero all at 4x.  I did try 2x but Brasero & GnomeBaker kept defaulting to 4x!

Anyway, the point is I've got one that clearly works on another PC and the question still stands if there's any way I can remaster the ISO with the correct video drivers so I haven't got the BSOD on my desktop! 

Based on a previous post which indicates that the older 96 nvidia driver works on that card, I would be inclined to remaster after changing the running system to the xorg vesa driver, and uninstalling the newer nvidia drivers, leaving the older one.

.. but I may be misunderstanding the problem ...

[YouCanToo]

3)  Now I've seen the end result, this also raises another question... where was the icon or menu item "Install PCLinuxOS" which I expected if I wanted to re-install? or can it only be done at boot time when it was one of the Grub screen options?

This has been discussed before. I can not find the post right now, but I am sure that a search will turn it up, or perhaps one of the guys remembers the original discussion about it.  If I remember correctly it has to so with something about the "draklive-install" program being removed or something to that effect.  You will need to reinstall it from synaptic

[Just17]

3)  Now I've seen the end result, this also raises another question... where was the icon or menu item "Install PCLinuxOS" which I expected if I wanted to re-install? or can it only be done at boot time when it was one of the Grub screen options?

The icon should be on the Desktop.
The menu entry is in  More Applications - Configuration .......  called 'Install PCLinuxOS'

The desktop file itself is located in
/usr/share/applications/draklive-install.desktop

You cannot remaster using mylivecd unless the draklive-install package has been added.

[melodie]

Hi,

The problem you met with might come from the free driver "nouveau". It is picked prior to nv and nvidia, and with some nvidia graphic cards it does not go well at all. Once I have even missed an install from a Live CD that was otherwise working well before installing : nouveau and matchbox-window-manager (the component which manages the post-install screens) had a fight, nouveau win, and adios post-install screens. After that I hit nouveau with a hammer from within a root console... after the following reboot I was prompted with the post-install screens...

You could try to remove it from your package list, (the driver and the firmware), or you could also leave them but blacklist nouveau in the file /etc/modprobe.d/pclos.blacklist and try to remaster again.

I will be looking forward to read if that helps.

[wharfhouse]

Thanks for all your replies everybody... most helpfull!

Based on a previous post which indicates that the older 96 nvidia driver works on that card, I would be inclined to remaster after changing the running system to the xorg vesa driver, and uninstalling the newer nvidia drivers, leaving the older one.

.. but I may be misunderstanding the problem ...

Funny you should say that... I was starting to think along those lines but not expert enough to know with confidence the correct procedure and was hoping someone could advise 

This links in nicely with Melodie's post:

Hi,

The problem you met with might come from the free driver "nouveau". It is picked prior to nv and nvidia, and with some nvidia graphic cards it does not go well at all. Once I have even missed an install from a Live CD that was otherwise working well before installing : nouveau and matchbox-window-manager (the component which manages the post-install screens) had a fight, nouveau win, and adios post-install screens. After that I hit nouveau with a hammer from within a root console... after the following reboot I was prompted with the post-install screens...

You could try to remove it from your package list, (the driver and the firmware), or you could also leave them but blacklist nouveau in the file /etc/modprobe.d/pclos.blacklist and try to remaster again.

I will be looking forward to read if that helps.

Mel, Hi!  I used to have dkms-nvidia96xx & X11-driver-video-nvidia96xx installed but was told that after an update awhile back they wouldn't work any more as they had been replaced with the Nouveau.

Perhaps I had misinterpreted that information.  If they are still available via Synaptic perhaps I could re-install them and see if it works on my system?  then perhaps try a remaster??  Would I still need to blacklist Nouveau? and if so how do I put it in the blacklist?

The icon should be on the Desktop.
The menu entry is in  More Applications - Configuration .......  called 'Install PCLinuxOS'

The desktop file itself is located in
/usr/share/applications/draklive-install.desktop

Thanks Just18,  I need to check I had that file on my system 

[djohnston]

Perhaps I had misinterpreted that information.  If they are still available via Synaptic perhaps I could re-install them and see if it works on my system?  then perhaps try a remaster??  Would I still need to blacklist Nouveau? and if so how do I put it in the blacklist?

dkms-nvidia96xx & X11-driver-video-nvidia96xx are still in the repositories. Be sure you have nonfree section enabled. As for the nouveau driver, just completely remove libdri-drivers-experimental & x11-driver-video-nouveau packages in Synaptic. Then the nouveau driver won't need to be blacklisted.

[wharfhouse]

Thanks for that Darrel,  I'll give it a go by & by and report back later.

Thanks to all for your help.

[OnlyHuman]

I just wondered if the problem could lay with the dvd/cdwriter,
sometimes I found plugging in in a spare cd drive has worked, when having booting problems,
sometimes a disk has been burnt by a writer ok, but doesn't always read the livecd as well as it should.

[wharfhouse]

Update...  (not good!)

Attempted to change the video driver to VESA last night, came to reboot... BSOD!  Tried all options from the Grub splash screen... BSOD!  No way I could get to a command line.

Then I remembered an intensive lesson O-P gave me on how to transfer command of the installed system onto a LiveCD - brilliant, I can at least get to XFdrake that way - sorted.  Well using the origianal LiveCD I did, and whatever I configured in XFdrake it wasn't having any of it... still BSOD!  This can't be right, I never had this problem before using a bog standard VESA driver?   What's changed?  Oh yes, I installed Nouveau since!  This was groundhog day except this was my installed system, not a remastered ISO!

I'm not going to be beaten... back on the CD used apt-get remove to uninstall the aforementioned NVidia drivers and install the ones that Darrel recommended.  That was the easy bit... everytime I quit from XFdrake after configuration it automatically started to download and install Nouveau drivers on its own...  Aaaaaagh   Couldn't get out of this  infernal loop!  Now I know how Melodie felt about getting a hammer to it!

I have to say, since my road into Linux I don't think anything has given me as much grief as video driver problems!  So I think I am beaten and the only thing I can do now is to re-install my root file system, and I can test out my remaster for this because, if you remember, it's fine up to the splash screen where I can install from there.  And if that fails, I can try out restoring my LuckyBackup

So, as this thread seems to be evolving into a different thread, I'm going to stop there until I can get back to the point where it started to deviate.  So in the words of Arnie: "I'll be back"!

I'll let you all know the results by & by. 

[wharfhouse]

I'm back! 

Short story... problem solved, except that in the end there wasn't technically a problem at all!!

Long story... yes it was video drivers causing the problems... another learning curve     After re-installing the root filesystem it would only boot to the desktop in vesa mode as expected.  After making sure there was NO inkling of anything Nouveau, I downloaded the legacy NVidia drivers (dkms-nvidia96xx & X11-driver-video-nvidia96xx) and tried to switch over to them in XFdrake... wouldn't have any of it  .  Bash said there was an NVidia module already in the kernel and aborted.  On quitting it automatically, without any prompt, on its own, downloaded Nouveau drivers and installed them    Well bugger that, I went through the process again carefully in case I missed something but no, exactly the same response!

I was minded of a previous thread that when kernel 2.6.38.8 first came out, it wouldn't work with these NVidia legacy drivers, only Nouveau.  Fine.  Let's go back to a previous kernel.  So I installed the earlier kernel, got rid of anything Nouveau, rebooted into the old kernel, checked the legacy drivers were still in place... XFdrake... went through the process again.  Well I'll be damned, exactly the same thing happened again:

an NVidia module already in the kernel and aborted.  On quitting it automatically, without any prompt, on its own, downloaded Nouveau drivers and installed them

So I admit defeat.  There was only one thing left for it... to use Melodie's hammer on all things NVidia 

Physically disabled the graphics card and in the BIOS in favour of the on-board S3 Unichrome adapter... problem solved    and now my LiveCD boots up to a desktop as it did before, but now I can see it!!!

(BTW, it also expalins why for years I had the same problem in Windows... wanting to load drivers for a VGA I didn't want to use, but at least in Device Manager you could disable it.)

So thanks everybody for bearing with me and your support... again!  I'll now mark the thread appropriately