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Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740 
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bowlkook
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Post # 274116
Post Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
I decided to have a go at installing M11 on my Dell Optiplex 740. But, neither DVD nor unetbootin created USB will boot. I get a kernel panic VFS: Unable to mount root fs. My image and DVD are good because I managed to boot a Virtualbox image from the DVD. I've Googled etc. but am none the wiser. Any ideas?
Wed May 18, 2011 10:08 am
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uncle mark
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Post # 274117
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
bowlkook wrote:
I decided to have a go at installing M11 on my Dell Optiplex 740. But, neither DVD nor unetbootin created USB will boot. I get a kernel panic VFS: Unable to mount root fs. My image and DVD are good because I managed to boot a Virtualbox image from the DVD. I've Googled etc. but am none the wiser. Any ideas?


First guess -- bad download and/or bad burn. Check md5sums.

Posting the specs of the machine would help if that checks out.

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Wed May 18, 2011 10:11 am
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Post # 274120
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
Here's the output of lspci
Code:
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 [GeForce 6150 LE] (rev a2)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a3)
00:0a.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a3)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5754 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)


I'm kind of discounting a bad DVD because Virtualbox has no problems with it. The image's md5sum checked out OK. I will go and check the DVD and report back if it's bad.

UPDATE: It does look like a bad burn! I'm having another attempt at it now. It's strange that the DVD booted in Virtualbox and that a USB stick also failed to boot with the same error...
Wed May 18, 2011 10:26 am
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lucky9
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Post # 274214
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
One thing to take away is that a bad burn will boot....a lot of the time. It makes it extremely difficult to find a cause if you haven't followed the protocol strictly. That's why it's there. That's why we ask.

It sounds like that ability to boot the DVD, and to not boot the USB memory key, seems to show that somewhere in the hardware detection might be where the (one of the?) bad parts of the burn is located. But that's just a guess because the DVD drive is earlier in the recognition cycle.

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Wed May 18, 2011 9:17 pm
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Post # 274234
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
Well, I re-burned the DVD from the image which has a correct md5sum. I haven't had a chance to test it yet...

I've kind of come to the conclusion that if I want Mepis 11 on this machine (Which I do! It's my main PC.) I might have to try to upgrade from M8 through the repos... Luckily, I have experimented a fair bit with similar scenarios so I think it should be do-able without any major issues. I think the main thing will be to get rid of as much KDE3 as possible before trying to install KDE4. Anyway, we'll see...
Thu May 19, 2011 3:12 am
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Post # 274238
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
Quote:
get rid of as much KDE3 as possible before trying to install KDE4

Another way is to first install M8.5 and upgrade from there. Then you don't risk any leftover configuration files from kde 3.5
You can find very detailed information about upgrading in the squeeze release notes.
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Thu May 19, 2011 4:28 am
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Post # 274239
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
A far better solution would be to further investigate getting USB boot working, it should be possible on most fairly new computers (5-6 y/o or newer), I found I had to format my USB stick to FAT32 before using Mepis System assistant to make a live USB, in order for it to boot.

Also you need to discount dodgy DVD drive, so if you have another to try...

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Thu May 19, 2011 4:48 am
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Post # 274242
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
check the live-usb, after formatting it with ext2 first. and then use unetbootin to write the .iso to it.

Worked for me, for a similar issue for antix iso.
Thu May 19, 2011 4:58 am
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Post # 290761
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
Turned out to be an issue with the amount of memory I've got in this machine! I've now got M11 installed. The solution was a grub cheat code as per this Red Hat bug report.
Sun Dec 11, 2011 2:08 pm
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Eadwine Rose
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Post # 290762
Post Re: Unable to boot Live DVD/USB Dell Optiplex 740
mem=4294967296


For posterity sake.. that argument above, right?

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