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## 4. About boot systems

## 4.1 A driver is missing in the partimage-bootdisk/bootcd. How can I solve the problem ?

Many users write us because they can't use the network (or another device). In most cases, the problem comes from the bootdisk/bootcd which does not support all drivers.

Space is limited in both partimage-bootdisk and partimage-rootdisk. We can't include all drivers that exists in the kernel sources. That's why only the most common NE2000 cards, and the most common AIC7xxx SCSI drivers are supported. It provides support for a lot of devices, but some of them need another driver. For example, 3COM cards are not supported. There are many ways to solve this problem:

- You can use another bootcd distribution, with more drivers, and which can be easily rebuild with your own options. Two projects provides eltorito bootable CD-Rom with stable versions of partimage: http://rescuecd.sourceforge.net/ and http://mkcdrec.ota.be/
- You can also replace partimage-bootdisk with a Slackware bootdisk. Slackware provide a lot of boot disks, and each of them include a kind of drivers. For example, there's one with all the SCSI drivers, another with all network drivers, and another with USB support. You can choose the one which will support your device. The full list of boot disks of Slackware 8 can be find here: ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-8.0/bootdsks.144/.
- You can compile your own kernel. That's the best way to be sure all your devices will be supported. We won't tell you how to compile your kernel here. We will tell you how to use a compiled vmlinuz/bzImage to create a partimage bootdisk. But first, when compiling your kernel, you must include some options: In the block-devices page, you must choose Yes for the last four options:
  - Loopback device support
  - Network block device support
  - RAM disk support with a default size of 40960 (that's not an error) disk size
  - Initial RAM disk initrd support.
  In the File systems, you must choose Yes for the Minix FS support. In the loadable module support page, you must choose No, in order to disable modules. After compiling your kernel, you will obtain bzImage. You must type three commands to make it the same thing as an official partimage-bootdisk image:
  - rdev bzImage /dev/fd0
  - rdev -r bzImage 49152
  - rdev -R bzImage 0

## 4.2 When I use the bootfloppy, I see an error with 09000900090009000900090009000 on the screen

I'm having a problem with booting from the bootdisk.

I've created the disk from the partimage-0.3.5-bootdisk-1.raw file, and when booting, all I see is

090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090 0090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090 0090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900

all over the screen.

This is a problem when you download the file with Netscape, and the ASCII mode. Try using FTP, or another tool: type wget AdressOfTheFileToDownload

## 4.3 Using Knoppix, Live Linux Filesystem On CD

Knoppix livcd http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/ provides partimage and partimaged with login and SSL support. To run them, you need to switch to text console (Ctrl+Alt+F1) because they require root rights. If you want to use partimaged, you need to set a password for user 'partimag' with passwd command (as root). Then use partimag login when prompted by partimage.

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