Cannot Install Open SUSE from CD or DVD

English Install/Boot/Login
1

This feels a really daft issue but I have tried just about everything I know to get the DVD installation up and running.

I have just put together a system, 3 hard disks, CD/DVD, 2GB of memory.

Everything fine as machine boots up but as soon as Boot from CD drive begins I get a system disk error.

The CD is the OPenSUSE from Novell. It doesn’t open automatically from Windows 7 (another system on another PC)

I have an old Suse 7 floppy (from my initial joust with Linux many years ago). That boots up to the extent of checking system but there is no installation - I may well not have all the necessary disks.

I have cleared some old windows off the hard disks with fdisk and a mbr delete. I thought this would leave the system clean and the CD would fire up. No such luck. Could it be the cd drive is somehow not recognising that what is on the CD is bootable?

I have just discovered an old partition magic (V6) start up disk. This has worked and I’m now in process of creating an Ext2 partition and hope that this might give the CD something to bite on.

Any advice on where I am going awry would be greatly appreciated.

2
  1. make sure the cd-rom is ok
  2. make sure the cd is ok
    hopefully you know how to do, right? any question please let me know, and the better you provide the screen output error here
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Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

The CD drive seems ok, for example a windows “recovery” disk works OK.

I doubt that both SUSE CD & DVD disks would be faulty. They are both read by the system I’m using to post this.

I’m afraid I can’t post a copy of screen data - there isn’t any!

Roy.

4

We mean run the media check option from the boot menu

5

> Everything fine as machine boots up but as soon as Boot from CD drive
> begins I get a system disk error.

what version of openSUSE (if it is older than openSUSE 11.0 it
probably will NOT know how to detect cutting edge hardware correctly)?

as caf mentioned, you MUST verify the disk is digitally 100% perfect
by running the media check from the first boot screen…see the screen
in this tutorial: http://en.opensuse.org/INSTALL_Local#Installation
(darn, i guess ‘they’ have renamed the media test to “Firmware Test”,
is that right?)

and, look closely at the words on how to check the downloaded iso at
http://tinyurl.com/ycgm2bx

since this is a new system, i’d strongly advise you to also run the
Memory Test…run it overnight, AT LEAST…one or two passes is NOT
enough…

(that the memory seems to be ok when running Win7 is NO proof that it
will support Linux (which is well known to demand higher adherence to
standards and give RAM a real ‘work out’)

–
palladium
Have a lot of fun…

6

Thanks for replies.

It is openSUSE V 11.1 from Novell.

I am using partition magic to set up the hard drive with a linux partition.

Pretty sure memory is OK. This does not seem to be the issue.

At present I have set BIOS to boot from CD only. When BIOS loading is finished system moves to cd-rom boot and nothing happens for a fair time. Then there is a “no system disk” message. I eject cd - put in again, hit any key, cd activity and then same message. I’m not getting to openSUSE start-up screen so there is nothing I can say about any error messages relating to SUSE. I cannot get to the disk to run the media check - but as I say it would be odd if both cd’s from Novell were dodgy.

I’ve just ordered an external usb cd drive that is stated to work with Linux. Other drives reviewed “required” windows o/s and I suppoose this might be the case with the (fairly old) internal cd drives I’ve installed.

Unless partition magic really is magic I’ll probably have to give up until the external drive arrives and then see if things change.

Thanks particularly for the pointers to the installation page. I’ll review that again once I’ve got to the Suse start screen.

Roy.

7

Installation Help - openSUSE

8

barcud wrote:
> It is openSUSE V 11.1 from Novell.

do i understand that to mean that they came to you in a box from Novell?

or, did you download a Live CD from
http://software.opensuse.org/111/en and burn the disk yourself…if
you burned the disk: did you md5sum check the iso before burning?

> I am using partition magic to set up the hard drive with a linux
> partition.

partition magic is NOT required to install openSUSE 11.1

> Pretty sure memory is OK. This does not seem to be the issue.

how did you determine that?

>
> At present I have set BIOS to boot from CD only. When BIOS loading is
> finished system moves to cd-rom boot and nothing happens for a fair
> time. Then there is a “no system disk” message.

to me, this means that your BIOS is not finding a bootable image on
the “system disk” (which in this case is the CD)…

> I eject cd - put in
> again, hit any key, cd activity and then same message. I’m not getting
> to openSUSE start-up screen so there is nothing I can say about any
> error messages relating to SUSE. I cannot get to the disk to run the
> media check - but as I say it would be odd if both cd’s from Novell
> were dodgy.

agreed…which, to me, means you probably have another problem (keep
reading)

> I’ve just ordered an external usb cd drive that is stated to work with
> Linux. Other drives reviewed “required” windows o/s

afaik, they only require MS to install the drivers…
Linux comes with free drivers that match most USB drive enclosure’s
boards…

> and I suppoose this
> might be the case with the (fairly old) internal cd drives I’ve
> installed.

well, there are ‘horror stories’ about getting CDs to be correctly
read by even the same new reader/writer that burned the disk…

you can sweep the net (with google) and find all kinds of problems
with both new and “fairly old” drives trying to read otherwise find
and dandy linux install media…

> Unless partition magic really is magic I’ll probably have to give up
> until the external drive arrives and then see if things change.

partition magic cannot force your CD reader to boot from a corrupted
live CD…

and, placing a Linux partition on your hard drive won’t help either,
since the boot process is not getting to the point of even looking at
your hard drives…that will come long after the first green screen,
see: http://en.opensuse.org/INSTALL_Local

in my mind the problem is one of these things:

  • the CD player itself is unable to read the disk (you a smoker? when
    was the last time you cleaned the laser lens? will it boot a Redmond
    or Ubuntu disk?)

  • the CD disk itself is damaged or corrupted in some way and cannot be
    read (see the previously give cite on how to burn and check a
    disk…take the disk to a different computer and see if it will boot
    there…)

others may have another view, and you are very welcome to await
theirs… (i have not been wrong today…YET…but maybe am now)

> Roy.

-welcome Roy-

–
palladium
Have a lot of fun…

9

Hi Folks,

Looks like it was an issue with the old cd-dvd reader. Tried again this evening with the old internal CD drive - no joy. But had bought a “Slimline USB External Dual Layer … Works with …Linux.” Booted from this – and the much sought for green welcome screen appeared – yippee!!

Am now testing memory (OK so far - up to test 6 - but that’s what the man who jumped from the Eiffel tower said to an enquirer as he was passing the first viewing platform) before proceeding with the installation. (DV)

Also cleared out the Hard drives I proposed using and replaced with a single spare 320 GB SATA drive. The box is much cleaner and aerier.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions which, as you see, are being acted upon.

Roy.

PS Having survived a form of cancer when I was 22, there is no way I’d start smoking again and not after 40 years!

10

> PS Having survived a form of cancer when I was 22, there is no way I’d
> start smoking again and not after 40 years!

smart man…

–
palladium
Have a lot of fun…