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Can't Select from boot menu


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#1 mikelygee

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Posted 04 April 2011 - 10:31 PM

I've created a couple of bootable SDCARDS (Finnix, DSL). Both are recognised by my Acer Aspire One netbook, presenting the boot menu and a countdown timer. If I press any key (for example, to select something other than the default), the timer stops and nothing else appears to happen.

If I let the timer run down, Finnix will boot, but DSL hangs "looking for USB".

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to resolve either problem?

Thanks,
Mike

#2 sbaeder

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Posted 05 April 2011 - 04:02 AM

I've created a couple of bootable SDCARDS (Finnix, DSL). Both are recognised by my Acer Aspire One netbook, presenting the boot menu and a countdown timer. If I press any key (for example, to select something other than the default), the timer stops and nothing else appears to happen.

If I let the timer run down, Finnix will boot, but DSL hangs "looking for USB".

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to resolve either problem?

Thanks,
Mike

Well, we would need more information on how you "created" these bootable SDCards...Basically they are acting like USB drives for booting. Which model of the Aspire are you using. I seem to recall from way back when that the SDCard slot on the original AAO needed to have drivers to allow access past the inital "bios boot stages" (this gets to the complexity of booting things and there are many other posts here on the site that explain all the nuances of which part of the computer is active when...

But to get back to the timeout issue. My GUESS is that no matter what boot loader the "ISO" you are using with unetbootin (since you're posting here) is that their bootloader has a menu with a default and a timeout. If you enter some sort of key press, you bypass the automatic selection of the menu default, and have to make another entry - possibly at just a boot "prompt"...So I think you are seeing the correct behavior...

Again, to help further diagnose things, knowing the source of the image you are using would help...Try using a tool like 7zip to browse or unpack the ISO to figure out if it is using a grub variant or isolinux...

I had played with DSL back when (it really isn't being updated or very actively developed anymore, and in fact, hard to find ISO's since Ibiblio changed around it's structure )...Are you using the standard ISO? Or the initrd flavor? I DL'd the two, and looked, and while they are different in the way they package the files, they both use ISOLINUX...

While there is more available on the web (just google things), here is the config file


DEFAULT linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 initrd=minirt24.gz nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

TIMEOUT 300



PROMPT 1

DISPLAY boot.msg

F1 boot.msg

F2 f2

F3 f3



LABEL dsl

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 initrd=minirt24.gz nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

LABEL memtest

KERNEL memtest

APPEND initrd=



LABEL dsl-txt

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=normal initrd=minirt24.gz nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

LABEL expert

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 initrd=minirt24.gz nomce BOOT_IMAGE=expert



LABEL fb1280x1024

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=794 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt24.gz nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix



LABEL fb1024x768

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt24.gz nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix



LABEL fb800x600

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=788 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt24.gz nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix



LABEL lowram

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=normal initrd=minirt24.gz noscsi noideraid nosound nousb nofirewire noicons minimal nomce noapic noapm lowram quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix



LABEL install

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=normal initrd=minirt24.gz noscsi noideraid nosound nofirewire legacy base norestore _install_ nomce noapic noapm quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix



LABEL failsafe

KERNEL linux24

APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init 2 lang=us vga=normal atapicd nosound noscsi nousb nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce nodhcp xmodule=vesa initrd=minirt24.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix base norestore legacy



LABEL userdef

KERNEL linux24

APPEND 


I added some blank lines to help you see the "labels" (things you could type at the prompt)...My guess is that the finnix system is similar...

Note the F1 F2 F3 entries that should display some sort of a text file if you hit the function keys (i.e. F1 key to display the standard text message.) Again, poke around inside the ISO (the boot/isolinux directory) or the SDCard that was created??? to see the things like this...

Hope this helps :smart:

Scott




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