Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List
Index
General Questions
Errors during "make" process
Boot Problems
with mkCDrec
Once
booted from the mkCDrec CD-ROM
Q: How do I format
a
1.722 Mb floppy
A:
Insert a 1.44 Mb floppy into drive A: and type the following:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/i486-linux-libc5/lib/; fdformat
/dev/fd0u1722
Q: During "make" I see
the error /dev/ram0: No such device
A:
The current linux kernel does not support DEV RAM and INITRD. Please
check the file /usr/src/linux/.config for the following lines:
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD=y (or m)
CONFIG_FAT_FS=y (or m)
CONFIG_MSDOS_FS=y (or m)
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_LOOP=y (or m)
CONFIG_ISO9660_FS=y (or m)
CONFIG_JOLIET=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM_SIZE=4096 or 8192
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD=y
Therefore, re-run a make config on the linux sources and re-install
vmlinuz + reboot the system. Then retry the mkcdrec make. See also the
'prerequisites' in the introduction
document.
Also have a look into the 'mkcdrec.log' file before sending me an
e-mail. Sometimes the answer is in there ;-)
Q: Could not find any
loop
device
A:
This indicates that your current kernel does not support a loopback
device (/dev/loop). Probably you will see an error message saying "The loopback mount of rd-base.img failed. " To
resolve see the first
question .
Q: Can I use a CD-writer
under Windows for CDrec.iso
A:
For Easy CD: rename to cdrec.iso
For WinOnCD: rename to cdrec.raw
With Easy CD Creator:
Open Easy CD Creator
Go to "File"
then to "Create CD from disc image"
make sure to change the bottom drop down menu ("Files of type:") to
say
"ISO image files"
It will do the rest after you browse to the *.iso
file
With WinOnCD:
you can select a
"track-image" project when you click the New button. So long as
you are
in track mode, not file-system mode (how that looks depends on
whether
you have 3.0 or 3.5) then dragging a track image file onto the CD
window
should accept it as a raw track. WinOnCD uses .RAW as its
own
extension.
With CD-Record (under Unix/Linux):
CD-Writing HowTo:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO
For example:
cdrecord -v speed=4 dev=4,0 CDrec.iso
You get the number on the SCSI bus number with "cdrecord
--scanbus"
Q: How
to print the web pages?
A:
If you print the page in portrait mode, text on the right side of the
page will be cut off. To print the entire width of the web page, choose
landscape mode from your printer menu. To do this, you will either need
to change the 'Page setup?' or adjust the 'Properties' for your printer
with in the 'Print?.' dialog box. If you encounter trouble, consult the
documentation or help within your browser.
Q: Does mkCDrec uses tar
or
dump to archive file systems
A:
mkCDrec uses GNU tar to create/extract file systems on CD-ROM or
remote. Each tar-ball is compresses with bzip2 (or gzip) for further
decrease the used file space. Note that Busybox also includes a tar,
but
we did not compile that one, as GNU tar has more options we want to use
at restore time.
Q: During make I see the
message "no space left"
A:
Error occurs during the run of rd-base.sh script :
This implicates that there is no space left in the /dev/ram. By default
the size of the ram disk is 24 Mb. At boot time the ramdisk reserves 24
Mb for restoring the ram disk in memory. If rd-base.sh script detects a
problem it will give a warning as continuing does not make much sense
at
this point.
Error is also seen when ramdisk runs out of inodes (check with df -i).
A variable for the RAMDISK_SIZE is defined in Config.sh
Error occurs during the run of initrd.sh :
By default the size of the initial ram disk is 2500 Kb, which is
sufficient in most cases. However, since kernel 2.4.x was introduced
(and a bigger libc) it could happen that this is not enough anymore. In
Config.sh file there is a parameter INITRDSIZE=2500. The 2500 may be
increased to 4096 which is the minimal size of an initrd as set by the
kernel (see /usr/src/linux/.config file:
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM_SIZE=4096).
Or, with Mandrake 9.2
the initial ramdisk may run full because insmod and modprobe became
static binaries instead of using shared libraries. Therefore, their
size increased drastically which causes the "no space left on device"
fatal error. MkCDrec v0.7.7 fixes this, or edit the initrd.sh script
and remove "modprobe" from the list of binaries.
The latest Linux
distributions which are based on the 2.6.x kernels tend to have a far
bigger size then before. For this reason the initial ramdisk size of
4096 Kb is becoming too small. Some distributions have the config file
present in the /proc filesystem, called /proc/config.gz. MkCDrec will
check this file, if present, and report the size. If mkcdrec cannot
detect the current size of the initial ramdisk the default value of
4096 will be used.
Furthermore, as a result of bigger kernels the bootflop.img is becoming
too small too. The only solution is the install the "mkcdrec utilities" which uses
isolinux instead of syslinux to boot from CD-ROM.
Error occurs during the run of bootflop.sh :
If you run out of disk space on the bootfloppy image then if probably
means that the
BOOT_FLOPPY_DENSITY=HD
was set in the Config.sh file (means 1.44 Mb size). You can increase
this to 2.88 Mb by replacing HD by ED. The drawback is with ED it is
not
possible anymore to make a physical boot floppy.
If you still run out of disk space with the ED setting then something
is seriously wrong! Check mkcdrec.log for details if any.
Please note that when mkCDrec Utilities are installed within mkcdrec
directory then automatically isolinux is used instead of syslinux. The
big advantage of isolinux is it doesn't emulate a bootfloppy, and
therefore, has no size restriction of a floppy be it 1.44 or 2.88 Mb.
The drawback is of course that no physical floppy can be made in this
way.
Or, with Mandrake 9.2
the bigger initrd.gz file may be the cause that 2.88 Mb bootfloppy size
is exceeded, and it fails with the message "bootfloppy is FULL". The
solution is to reduce the size of initrd (see above).
Q: Where is the syslog file?
A:
From v0.5.0 on the syslog is stored in de /var/log/messages file.
Q: Does mkCDrec make a log
file?
A:
Yes. Check the file $MKCDREC_DIR/mkcdrec.log file for information captured during the make file
.
You will find information make by the scripts rd-base.sh (which makes
the basic ram disk) and initrd.sh script (which makes the initial ram
disk).
Other log files are the output listing of the tar commands. These can
be found on the $ISOFS_DIR directory and also on the final ISO
image.
Q: Booting off the CDrec
CD-ROM freezes at "linux.."
A:
Finding a single explanation for this behavior is not straightforward,
nor easy. I can recommend the following steps which could lead to the
cause of this problem. In fact I call these steps reverse engineering
on how to make a boot image...
1. Check the mkcdrec.log file for error
messages. An example is included in doc/
2. Try to mount the CDrec.iso image as follow:
# mount
-o loop ./CDrec.iso /mnt/cdrom
# cd /mnt/cdrom |
3. Mount the bootflop.img on /mnt/floppy
# mount -t msdos -o loop
./bootflop.img /mnt/floppy
# cd /mnt/floppy
# ls -l
total 1224
-rwxr-xr-x 1
root root
719078 Dec 22 14:00 initrd.gz
-r-xr-xr-x 1
root
root 5980 Dec 22 14:00
ldlinux.sys
-rwxr-xr-x 1
root root
524314 Dec 22 14:00 linux
-rwxr-xr-x 1
root
root 488 Dec 22
14:00 mkcdrec.msg
-rwxr-xr-x 1
root
root 96 Dec
22 14:00 syslinux.cfg |
4. Next step is to mount the initrd onto yet another mount-point
;-)
# gunzip -c initrd.gz
>/tmp/initrd
# mount -o loop /tmp/initrd
/mnt/floppy1
# cd /mnt/floppy1
# ls -l
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
bin
drwxr-xr-x 2
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
dev
drwxr-xr-x 2
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
etc
drwxr-xr-x 2
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
lib
-rwx------ 1
root
root 1516 Dec 22 14:00
linuxrc
drwxr-xr-x 2
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
mnt
drwxr-xr-x 2
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
proc
drwxr-xr-x 2
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
sbin
drwxr-xr-x 3
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
usr
drwxr-xr-x 3
root
root 1024 Dec 22 14:00
var
# cat linuxrc |
If the last command (or the ls command) fails with the message "I/O
error" you had luck and found the cause of the problem. The problems is
your linux current kernel and gzip wrongly compresses the "nulls" on
the ramdisk which corrupts the image at uncompressing.
One known linux kernel which has this problem is:
- linux-2.2.10
5. If the initial ramdisk seems to be OK then the problem has to be
with the linux kernel. Are you sure the linux kernel contains all the prerequisites mentioned in
the introduction?
- Problems have been reported with gzip version
below 1.2.4a - therefore, when in doubt grap the latest gzip
distribution:
ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/pub/gnu/gzip
-
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM_SIZE=4096 or 8192 is often misunderstood in the
prerequisites! This is not the final ram size when mkCDrec has
been booted and is up and running (currently in 24 Mb). It is the
amount
of ram the initial bootstrap uses and 4 Mb is in most
circumstances sufficient.
Q: Cloning was successful, but
at reboot I got a VFS panic
A:
Two possible errors are a bad reference in the /etc/lilo.conf file to a
file system which does not exist on the cloned system, or something is
wrong with the /etc/fstab file.
Also, check /etc/HOSTNAME, /etc/hosts and the IP addresses on the
cloned system!
Q: What does
"bootflop.img" not found mean
A:
An error occured during the "bootflop.sh" script which makes the boot
floppy image to make the CD boot under El
Torito emulation.
Most probably you did not included msdos support in your kernel. Yep,
to make CDrec bootable one need "msdos" file system (you can hardly
call
it a file system) in your kernel.
Q:
Could not mount bootflop.img
A:
If you an error message (see also included
picture of the message):
mount: could not find any
device /dev/loop#
ERROR:
Could not mount bootflop.img.
Make sure that the "msdos" filesystem is in your kernel (or exist as
module). |
Type immediately the following command:
# lsmod
Most likely the loop module will not be listed! That's the problem. To
correct this type:
# modprobe loop
This problem (not directly of mkcdrec by the way) will be corrected in
v.0.5.1 and higher. If you do a make again it should work better
now.
Q: During tape
backup
I get an I/O error
A:
If you see the following error message on your screen:
I/O error
1882487+3 records in
1882488+1 records out an
I/O error |
then check the tape with the following command (e.g. on a HP-UX
box):
# mt -t
/dev/rmt/0m stat
Drive: HP C1537A
Format: DDS-1 format
Status: [a1111300] EOF EOT
online compression immediate-report-mode |
This clearly states that the tape reached the end of the tape, and
therefore, tar had to stop with an I/O error. To be honest, the person
got a warning before the tar started that it might not fit on the
tape.
Finding an easy way, before storing data on tape, how much data really
fits on a tape is not yet implemented. It is on the ToDo list.
Q: During tar-it.sh I get
a segmentation fault - what happens?
A:
If you see something like the following:
/home/gratiend/src/recovery/mkcdrec/scripts/tar-it.sh:
line 248: 5487 Segmentation fault ${DEBUG} tar
--create --verbose --same-owner --blocking-factor=512
--preserve-permissions --exclude-from=${TMP_DIR}/${_Fs}.exclude_list
--${CMP_PROG} --file - .
5488
Done
| ${CUTSTREAM} |
Then it is not an error with mkCDrec, but there is something wrong with
your system. Bad RAM, or disk problems. The mkCDrec Utilities has an
excellent memory tester - check it out.
See also http://www.BitWizard.nl/sig11/
for an in-depth explanation of the sig11 syndrome!
Q: Start-restore.sh
stops with a weird fdisk message
A:
During start-restore.sh the script stops with the following message
:
sfdisk: I don't
like these partitions - nothing changed
(If you really want this, use
the --force options.) |
You can solve it by editing the file /etc/recovery/sfdisk.hda
(replace hda with the correct disk name). Remember, vi is
available to edit the file (or elvis), or whatever you have chosen to
be
the preferred editor.
Before:
sfdisk
/dev/hda < /etc/recovery/partitions.hda |
After:
sfdisk --force
/dev/hda < /etc/recovery/partitions.hda |
Restart the start-restore.sh script and it won't complain this
time ;-)
Q:
CD was made OK, but it doesn't boot
A:
There are some points to check first:
- do a "make test" (should be successful)
- check mkcdrec.log file for trivial errors
- Check Config.sh: if BOOT_FLOPPY_DENSITY=HD tryED
instead
- redo "make", if it boots now then the bootflop.img
was full but was not caught by the make procedure. It can happen that
more space was needed than 1.44 Mb (HD), by using ED you have 2.88 Mb.
- Check also if all loadable modules you need to mount
the CD-ROM are copied to the initrd.img file. The mkcdrec.log file list
the modules it finds.
- Warning: Linux kernel
2.4.[0-3] are known for a buggy loopback device. Please upgrade to
2.4.4 or higher immediately!
- Check if the space left on the initrd.img image was
only a few bytes! If so, then increase the INITRDSIZE=2500 to 4096 and
try again.
- Make sure you're using the bash shell (check with
"echo $SHELL")
- Check the size of the iso image and compare with 'du
-sk $ISOFS_DIR'. If the size of the iso image is 650 Mb and the other
is much more than decrease the value of MAXCDSIZE=650000 to a lower
value in the Config.sh file. Try again.
- Install the mkcdrec utilities to force isolinux
(instead of syslinux)
- If booting of DVD's, then check if your PC's BIOS is
capable of booting images bigger then 2 Gb
- Check also question: "Permission
denied" errors right after pivot_root call
- It still doesn't boot, then jump to the support pages of mkCDrec
Q:
How to scroll back text on console
A:
Use the "Shift PageUp" key to scroll back on text displayed on
the console.
Q: Can
mkCDrec work from cron?
A:
YES! But only from release v0.5.5 and higher. What is available?
- make help : shows below list.
- make rescue : make a rescue CD-ROM
only
- make CD-ROM : make rescue CD-ROM with
backups on CD too
- make device : make rescue CD-ROM with
backups on tape (TAPE_DEV in Config.sh must be a valid device otherwise
no-go)
- make path DESTINATION_PATH=/foo
:
make rescue CD-ROM with backups on destination path /foo
- make OBDR:
creates a bootable OBDR tape; set BURNCDR=n in Config.sh file to
disable the creation of a CD-R as it is not needed with OBDR tapes.
- make install:
creates a simple /usr/sbin/mkcdrec script which points to mkCDrec's top
directory and executes its make command including options passed to the
mkcdrec command.
- check also contributions/mkcdrec.sh script
which can be used directly for cron purposes (please adapt the path to
mkcdrec in specified script).
Q:
Backup/restore works ok, but after that LILO hangs at "L"
A:
The "L" is the first letter of the "LILO" prompt. If after the "L" you
see some error code (a figure) you can search the bootdisk-HOWTO (
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/index.html , appendix
B)
If "L" is all you get, you probably used the keyword "linear" in your
lilo.conf file. If then the disk is >1024 cylinders (probably is,
use
fdisk to know for sure), this might be a solution to your
problem:
"linear" is a very dangerous option. It suppresses
many diagnostic messages which could be produced at boot-install time,
and defers the messages to actual boot-time. This is when you are
getting your failure.
Try "lba32" instead of "linear". This will address
beyond cylinder 1023 using 32-bit disk addresses. ("linear" uses
24-bits). Your BIOS must have the EDD packet call interface for this to
work, but most post-1998 systems have such BIOS support.
Q:
Please
append a correct "root=" boot option
A1:
This error can occur when you type at a boot: prompt the
following:
boot: linux root=/dev/hda1
linux...
<snip.snip>
request_module[block-major-3]: Root fs not mounted
VFS: Cannot open root device "hda1" or 03:01
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:01
Then probably, the device driver for "ide" disk was NOT
compiled into the kernel itself, but as a module.
You will notice booting from mkCDrec CD-ROM that the linux kernel and
initrd.gz are loaded into memory. Initrd does probably contain the ide
loadable modules in /lib/modules/
If you ask for another "root" such as /dev/hda1, then initrd will not
be loaded from the CD-ROM into memory, and the linux kernel will try to
mount /dev/hda1 but cannot because of the missing ide device
driver.
Solution: recompile the linux kernel and
select "y" for ide support (and not "m").
CONFIG_IDE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y
A2:
Mandrake 8 and 9 often return a kernel panic when booting from mkCDrec:
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k
block-major-8, error=2
VFS: Cannot open root device "" or 08:05
Please append correct "root=" boot option.
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:05
Solution: Check the append= line in
/etc/lilo.conf and add what is between the quotes to the variable
KERNEL_APPEND in Config.sh file.
For Mandrake check if
"devfs=mount" is not listed in the output command 'cat /proc/cmdline'.
Yes? Add this the KERNEL_APPEND variable in Config.sh. MkCDrec v0.7.7
will check this during the "make test"
Q: "Permission denied" errors
right after pivot_root call
A:
While booting from the CD-ROM you see the following errors :
I believe the CD-ROM device is /dev/hdc
Using pivot_root
mount -n -o ro /dev/ram1 /new_root
Devfs support does not seem to exist.
My pid is 7.
using bug circumvention for busybox.
init started: Busybox v0.53pre( ... DATE ... ) multy-call binary
Bummer, could not run '/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/sbin/getty' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/bin/sh' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/sbin/getty' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/bin/sh' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/sbin/getty' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/bin/sh' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/sbin/getty' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/bin/sh' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/sbin/getty' : permission denied
Bummer, could not run '/bin/sh' : permission denied
(endless loop)
This has in fact nothing to do wth the
pivot_root call, but is a small bug
in the way mkcdrec created the libraries for the rd-base image.
Until now, these were created using objcopy (see rd-base.sh script),
but objcopy does not retain the permissions of the libraries, which
need
to be executable (at least in 2.4 kernels, 2.2 kernels don't seem to be
this strict).
Now that the problem is found, it's easy to get around it, so expect
the
rd-base.sh script to be changed a bit (eg.: objcopy replaced by
cp;strip
solves this problem completely).
From: Franky Van Liedekerke
<liedekef@pandora.be> |
Note: this has been corrected in v0.5.8 - please update!
Q: Kernel
Panic: No init found.
A:
Warning: Unable to open an initial
console.
Kernel Panic: No init found. Try
passing init= option to kernel.
The question is are you using devfs? Mandrake 8.1 uses by default
devfs. Therefore, change the following line in Config.sh file:
KERNEL_APPEND="devfs=mount"
Q: reboot
command does not work
A:
Sometimes the "shutdown", "reboot" commands do not work under mkCDrec.
These commands are from the BusyBox bag-of-tools, and there is no clear
reason why on some computers with a certain kernel version it does not
work.
Anyway, I wrote a small script "alt-ctrl-del" which is a kind of
wrapper to perform a real reboot, and it is self-explaining.
Q:
start-restore.sh fails on disk of same size as original
A:
> I have re-done
everything and still come up with an error trying to
> restore a Debian 3
using the start-restore.sh.
>
> This time I do not
see any boundary problems with an fdisk -l on the
> machine I backed up.
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 32
heads, 63 sectors, 4187 cylinders
> Units = cylinders
of 2016 * 512 bytes
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 255
heads, 63 sectors, 2434 cylinders
> Old situation:
> Units = cylinders
of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0
The problem is that on the original OS it thinks
/dev/hda: 32 heads, 63
sectors, 4187 cylinders and under mkcdrec it thinks Disk /dev/hda: 255
heads,
63 sectors, 2434 cylinders.
My advise is to read the Large Disk HOWTO for further details on this
issue.
It is explained well. The URL is:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO.html#ss14.2
Q: Booting from CD
results
in "FD 2.88MB System Type-(19)"
A:
The Boot failed error message was caused by syslinux due to a buggy
BIOS.
In the Makefile of mkCDrec there is an entry "SAFE_SYSLINUX=false"
which is the default. Sometimes it helps when you change the
entry
to "true" in the Makefile.
Do not change the entry in the Makefile for fun as booting will
become very slow.
Q: cdrom:
This disc doesn't have any tracks I recognize
A:
On RedHat 7.3 with default cdrtools (cdrecord-1.10-11:7) installed the
system may freeze with the above message recorded in the
/var/log/messages file. Rebooting the system is the only resolution for
that problem.
My humble advise is to download and install immediately the latest
linux kernel (2.4.19 or higher) and a recent
cdrtools-1.11 version which seems to resolve the problem.
Q: cramfs: wrong magic
while booting from CD
RAMDISK Compressed image found at block 0 freeing initrd memory 1236k freed cramfs: wrong magic kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 01.00
A:
On Debian systems just change INITRD_FS=cramfs (instead of ext2) in the
Config.sh file.
Q: mkcdrec.log:
integrity testing: unexpected end of file
Doing integrity
testing on backups.
cciss_c0d0p2._.log.gz:
OK
cciss_c0d0p2._.tar.gz:
OK
gzip:
cciss_c0d0p3._daten.log.gz: unexpected end of file
rd-base.img.bz2: ok
A:
The unexpected end of file message is from a log file which is still
open (from a multi-volume CD session). Nothing to worry about as on the
next CD it will be complete.
Q:
bootfloppy image is too big to make backup image to the floppy/
Sometimes you see the following message in the mkcdrec.log file:
Unfortunately current bootfloppy image is too big to make a backup image to the floppy/ directory on CD-ROM
A:
Do not worry about it! Mkcdrec checks if the current bootfloppy image
(usually 2.8 Mb) can be shrinked to 1.4 or 1.7 Mb image. If that is
possible then it will create this backup image to the floppy/ directory
on the first CDrec ISO image. The backup image can be "dd" to a
physical
floppy later.
It happens people loose their floppies or they get unuable. Or, the PC
BIOS is not able to boot from CD.
In short, this message does not mean you have a problem with mkcdrec!
Q:
cutstream compilation error with v0.7.4
With mkcdrec v0.7.4 people have reported the following problem
while compiling cutstream (only on older distributions):
Fatal: cutstream: compilation failed - check MAXCDSIZE in Config.sh The log shows; make[2]: Entering directory `/var/opt/mkcdrec/cutstream' gcc -o cutstream cutstream.c cutstream.c:62: parse error before `char' make[2]: *** [all] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/opt/mkcdrec/cutstream'
A:
To resolve the issue edit the cutstream/Makefile and replace "gcc" with
"g++" or download latest version from the CVS tree. In mkcdrec v0.7.5
this is fixed though.
Q: bootflop.img exceeds 2.88 MB
It could happen that the bootflop.img becomes too big and the result is
that booting from CD fails:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2949120 Oct 6 20:21 bootflop.img
In this case, CD Booting comes error with message,
boot from CD: 1. FD 2.88MB System Type-(0F) Boot failed
A:
Please install the latest mkcdrec_utilities! By doing this you will
start using isolinux instead
of syslinux and isolinux is
not limited
by size of 2.88Mb.
Q:
Using DVD-writer instead of CD-writer (introduction)
People reported that they are able to create a CDrec.iso image directly
to DVD without using growisofs.
Edit Config.sh and set the following:
DVD_Drive=0
CDRECORD=dvdrecord
MAXCDSIZE=4700000
Using DVD_Drive=1 results into using the growisofs executable which
writes directly to a DVD-R(W) without creating an ISO9660 image
(/tmp/CDrec.iso)!!!
Q:
What is One-Button Disaster Recovery (OBDR)?
A technical
paper on OBDR of ZDnet explains it quiet well. Also on the HP
site more information can be found.
To restore using OBDR the tape device must be powered on with the eject button held down. This will
cause the tape device lights to alternate repeatedly. Set the computers
BIOS to boot to SCSI.
(Typically holding the delete key down while booting will invoke the
computer's BIOS.) Enter the SCSI BIOS (the key sequence is SCSI
specific, but is typically entered during the boot process also.) Scan
the SCSI bus to determine which bus id represents the tape device.
Setup the SCSI adapter to boot to the tape device id. Setup the device
to start (or spin) at boot time. Setup BIOS support for Bootable
CD-ROM. Exit the SCSI BIOS and while booting select boot form SCSI
CD-ROM (again the key sequence is SCSI specific).
If above condition are met the tape drive will download from tape (if
made by mkCDrec "make OBDR") the linux and initrd.img and thereafter
download the bigger rd-base.img file. As an OBDR tape emulates a
bootable CD-ROM there is no difference between a real CD-R made by
mkCDrec (e.g. make CD-ROM).
Q:
initrd.gz: No space left on device
In the mkcdrec.log file you find sometimes the following:
Copy the
initial ram disk image to the boot floppy image.
`initrd.img.gz' -> `/home/nnroot/mkcdrec/stage/initrd.gz'
cp: writing `/home/nnroot/mkcdrec/stage/initrd.gz': No space
left on device
Warning: initrd.img.gz is not copied to bootfloppy image
Warning: bootfloppy is FULL!
Will use "isolinux" instead.
Make syslinux.cfg file
Make CD-ROM bootable with isolinux
cp: cannot
stat `/home/nnroot/mkcdrec/stage/initrd.gz': No such file or directory
Setting up bootable characteristics of the floppy(syslinux)
syslinux /home/nnroot/mkcdrec/tmp/bootflop.img
Copy the 1.44 or 2.88 Mb bootflop.img to ISOFS_DIR
`/home/nnroot/mkcdrec/tmp/bootflop.img' ->
`/backup/backup/bootflop.img'
Boot floppy is ready.
Unfortunately current bootfloppy image is too big to
make an extra 1.722 Mb image into floppy/
directory on the CD-ROM
A:
The answer comes in three-fold. First the blue line, then the red one
and as last the green one.
The no space left
means the bootfloppy disk image was too small to contain the compresses
initial ramdisk and GNU/Linux kernel. Typically you will see these
errors with kernel above 2.6.x
It really means
mkCDrec is not able to successfully create a bootfloppy emulation to
boot from, and the only solution is to use isolinux (boot directly from
CD instead via bootfloppy emulation).
The will use
"isolinux" instead message is the conclusion of the first error
message, but mkCDrec will only use isolinux if mkCDrec_utilities are
installed.
The "no such
file or directory" is the result of mkCDrec deleted the corrupted
initrd.gz file, and therefore, the error message is not a real error,
only a conclusion that syslinux is unusable from now on. Remember,
syslinux is used to make the bootfloppy image bootable (which is too
small now to contain the initrd and linux kernel).
So, forget syslinux
and bootfloppy emulation altogether. We must use isolinux!
Conclusion:
install mkCDrec_utilities and do a "make clean" and then re-run "make
CD-ROM/rescue"
Be
aware that since v0.8.7 and higher there is no need to install
mkCDrec_utilities anymore as "isolinux" has become the default way of
booting.
Q: Mandrake: make test complains
about MAKEDEV
During the "make test" phase you will notice in test 2 the message:
Please_install_the_MAKEDEV_package: you must have it!
On Mandrake you may gently ignore this message and continue. It
reflects on Fedore Core 4 only.
$Id: faqs.html,v 1.27 2003/10/26
14:28:07 gdha Exp $
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