An update to my "SL 40 won't CD-boot" problem.  I'm
using a spare Dell Optiplex Gn system purely as a test
host to try to validate the SL 40 CD's.  My initial
attempts had the BIOS trying to boot from the CD but
after a short burst of CD accesses the BIOS reverted
to booting the hard drive - hence my initial question
regarding whether disk1 of the
SL.40.042505.i386.discn.iso distributions was indeed
bootable.

My problem was resolved by a BIOS upgrade.  This
Optiplex was using Phoenix BIOS ver 1.10 A10.  An
upgrade to A12 now has disk1 booting the initial
install screen.  My thanks to everyone for their
suggestions.

That's the good news.  The bad news is now the install
process is in an unbreakable loop.  The initial SL
install screen appears.  Selecting any of the listed
install methods yields exactly the same result:

    Loading vmlinuz.....<a bunch of dots>...
    Loading initrd.img...<a bunch of dots>...
    Followed by a hard reboot

The reboot of course brings me back to where I
started.

I've tried both graphical and text mode starts with
and without 'noprobe'.  The Fn keys work.  Note that
'linux mediacheck' and 'linux askmethod' also yield
same result.  'memtest86' fails with a different
message - "Could not find kernel image: memtest86".  A
'linux memtest86' yields the hard reboot result.

This Optiplex has 96MB of main memory and a 2GB hard
disk.  Keyboard and mouse attached.  One internal
CDROM and 1.44 floppy drive.  The BIOS is set
correctly in terms of memory and harddisk sizing and
'boot first from CDROM'.  Does the install start
process (silently) fail if it detects insufficient
storage resources?  I can certainly upgrade this host
but am a bit relunctant to do so if I can't get the OS
to accept it.  (I was hoping 'mediacheck' could tell
me the CD set is OK, at least enough to be confident
in spending for more memmory/harddisk)

There are no error messages that I can see.  Does this
sound like a bad CD image or a machine problem?  (the
2GB harddisk has a Windows 2000 install on it that
boots fine).

Has anyone else run across this loop pattern?

TIA,
r.m.



		
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