Windows 7 - Vista Broken after using Knoppix Live CD

Asked By jonah

03-Mar-07 05:54 PM

Was using Knoppix Live CD on my new Vista PC, shut down last night no
problems, booting Vista today and would not load, got drive hunting
problems half way through boot up and could not get to the login
screen. Checked out all usual suspects, no good then tried a backup
image, this worked but Vista would not load because the new boot
loader was corrupt. Used the Windows Repair option and to my great
surprise and satisfaction it worked perfectly without drama and Vista
booted up as per the image I put in.

Point is I am puzzled as to why or if running a Knoppix (or any other)
live CD O/S which does not supposedly affect any existing
installations could have caused the problems. I cannot think of
anything I did before running Knoppix from boot so I presume when it
writes a swap file to use as RAM it buggered up Vista in some way.

Used latest 5.1 version of Knoppix on Vista Ultimate box.

Any enlightenment appreciated.

Jonah

03-Mar-07 06:21 PM

Did you change the boot order and change the BIOS or use F8 to tell it to
boot from the CD?

Bob S.

03-Mar-07 06:37 PM

Yep it was booting CD / HDD, ran knoppix from the CD, shut down,
re-boot Vista - all hell breaks loose? Can only surmise it was Knoppix
writing something to the HDD, first time I ran a live CD on Vista -
just puzzled now - might not even have been knoppix could be random,
hell of a coincidence though. Same live CD has no after effects on Win
XP, 2000, Suse 10.2 or Fedoora 6 boxes.

Jonah

03-Mar-07 07:33 PM

Wrong.  As I indicated yesterday, it establishes a ramdisk and then tries to
access the drives....it needs to do so to MERGE (its term).  It does indeed
write to the system.

03-Mar-07 07:36 PM

Sorry, but I've been using Knoppix to rescue Windows computers for years
and it will not write anything to any part of your hard drive. It will
not change your boot order or affect another operating system's boot
files. In addition, the default is to not permit writing to an NTFS
partition and Vista is only installed on NTFS partitions. Therefore you
either ran something like a partition editor - not something you could
have done by accident or unknowingly - or your problems are coincidental
to running Knoppix.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

03-Mar-07 08:19 PM

On Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:36:42 -0800, Malke <notreally@invalid.invalid>

snip

I did not specifically tell Knoppix to write anything to HDD, I was
just having a look at it and playing with various bits. If I had told
it to write to disk I would have remembered that, its not something
you do accidently as was pointed out.

I thought it may have something to do with the Ramdisk (unlikely) but
I know it should never write to an NTFS partition so therefore it
could not be the cause of the problems, or could it? I therefore it
was just random co-incidence - just wierd is all so I thought I would
run it past you guys before I try it on the Vistabox again.

I will try it again tomorrow with less than two week old image 8-)
If it goes pear shaped again I will be back

Jonah

03-Mar-07 10:22 PM

NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER run Linux unless you have RTFM !!!!!
And there are MANY, F**** manuals..........

If you are lucky, Linux just killed your foot sector.
If you are unlucky, Linux just fermented your entire sector system and
all of your Windows data is lost.

Last time I tried Linux, it absolutely destroyed my entire system,
corrupted my NTFS partitions and burned out my CRT monitor
because the video was set too high a frequency because Linux was too
stupid to know how to set it properly.

I didn't know this until 3 days later my monitor let out a buzzing
noise for a few seconds, the screen went blank and it never worked
again.

Linux sucks!!!
That is why Linux is free.
Because Linux SUCKS!

Ask yourself a simple question. If Linux is so great, why isn't any
appreciable number of people using Linux?

Now you have your answer.

I hope you get your data back, but I doubt it.
Hopefully you have a good backup.

Oh, and don't believe what the Loonix nuts say about LiveCDS not
touching your hard drive.
As you have discovered, they DO SCREW WITH YOUR HARD DRIVE.
And most times, Linux will hose it.

Good luck
RT

03-Mar-07 11:25 PM

This might be a BIOS issue unrelated to the Knoppix or Vista.  I have had
the same damn thing happen when I swap out bootable hdds.  As far as I
can tell, the BIOS looks for the same boot sector it used last time, and
fails when it doesn't find it, even though it is presented with a
different, but still valid, boot sector.  Sometimes I have had to
physically reset the BIOS to get my computer to work again.

Charlie

04-Mar-07 02:42 AM

Then explain why, when it tries various disc systems on the hard drives, it
aborts installation and crashes?

04-Mar-07 03:05 AM

Yes, Linux will burn out your monitor, electrocute your mouse, melt your
keyboard, and say bad things about you to your neighbors.
If you tried really really hard, could you *BE* more foolish?

--
Maxwell Bluemeanie
Glad my foot sector is OK
------

04-Mar-07 03:37 AM

LOL. Agree,

What he needs is this "complete 3D desktop in a pocket".
http://www.mandriva.com/en/individuals/products/node_3482

it will definetly burn his...
-----

// moma
http://www.futuredesktop.org  <-- Buntu rocks !

04-Mar-07 04:16 AM

LOL, ROTF, thanks for making me laugh :) I never ever have read such a
stupid person telling us his and, or her foolishness openly and, or
publicly in a newsgroup and blaming all that to Linux.

IMHO, you don't know -- what Linux is, what it can and, or can not do,
what is free in free/open source software?

Want to know answers to the above said questions? Please make your mind
in an unbiased manner and join some neighborer who uses Linux. I bet you
will love it like anything once you know *what Linux really is* and
*what you are doing with it*.

--
Dr Balwinder S "bsd" Dheeman          Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME                      Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Gentoo, Fedora, Knoppix/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/

04-Mar-07 05:17 AM

So far the famous Knoppix just does not go past the ramdisc merge on my
machine.  What wonderful, crappy software.

04-Mar-07 07:11 AM

Well thanks RT, what do you think I am, do I post like a clueless
newbie or something? I have been using Linux live distros for many
years, first time this has ever happened and I have RTFM.

Jonah

04-Mar-07 07:13 AM

On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 04:25:10 GMT, Charlie Wilkes


Thanks Charlie, that makes sense will check it out later, makes more
sense than a random - co-incidental boot fault. Its on a test box
anyway so I don't particularly care if it blows up, will try again
then check the BIOS.

Jonah

04-Mar-07 07:18 AM

Got DSL and various other small live distros, will try some of them
also, think Charlie has got the answer earlier in the thread, Windows
Vista looking for the same boot sector as last time which would
explain the problem to a degree. Knoppix did run fine but this
5150 so I am not entirely happy with it, used Knoppix a lot and never
had any issues before worth getting upset about.

Jonah

04-Mar-07 07:59 AM

There are many different versions of knoppix as well as diagnostic CDs out
there that you should try before moaning.
http://www.livecdlist.com
e.g. System Rescue CD, DSL, Mepis, Morphix, Slax etc...
(search for diagnostic CDs in the list)

04-Mar-07 04:30 PM

If you really want to seek to some helpful answers, provide some more
and, or relevant information, please.

I've been using GNU/Linux since 1993 successfully on various machines
and have never ever faced any such problem. Moreover, Knoppix version
5.0.1 2006-06-01 (installed, dist-upgraded, vanilla kernel 2.6.20.1) is
running fine here on my DELL Inspiron 4150 since August 2006; everything
except for win(cheap)modem is working.

--
Dr Balwinder S "bsd" Dheeman          Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME                      Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Gentoo, Fedora, Knoppix/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/