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 Forum index » Advanced Topics » Hardware
Is it possible to make a machine *unbootable* using Puppy?
Moderators: Flash, Ian, JohnMurga
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Sky Aisling


Joined: 27 Jun 2009
Posts: 592
Location: Port Townsend, WA. USA
PostPosted: Fri 31 Aug 2012, 19:18    Post subject:  Is it possible to make a machine *unbootable* using Puppy?
Subject description: Never mind, turned out the CD drive failed		  
Hello Kennel Companions,

Is it possible to make a machine *unbootable* using Puppy?
Can the mishandling of installing a .sfs make a machine *unbootable*?

If the answer to either of these questions is "yes, but, it can be fixed", then I will lay out the tangled web I wove to wind up with perhaps an *unbootable* machine.

Thank you much in advance of your response.

Sky
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Dewbie

Joined: 15 Apr 2010
Posts: 1425
PostPosted: Fri 31 Aug 2012, 22:13    Post subject:  
You're being unusually cryptic, Sky. Shocked
What happened?

Assuming the botched .sfs is on your hard drive...
Did you try to sort it out by booting from CD?
(with the puppy pfix=ram option)
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Sky Aisling


Joined: 27 Jun 2009
Posts: 592
Location: Port Townsend, WA. USA
PostPosted: Fri 31 Aug 2012, 22:33    Post subject: Is it possible to make a machine *unbootable* using Puppy?
Subject description: [SOLVED]		  
Hi Dewbie,


Issue Solved just moments before your post came in. The CD Drive is failing.

So, issue is a hardware failure not a software failure.

As we speak I am holding the front plate of the CD drive hard to the machine to get it to load Puppy from Live CD into RAM.

My apologies for being cryptic but I didn't want to post a long painful text unless I had reason to believe I messed up the machine with my software installation error.

I haven't. Whew! well, it looks like the drive has hung together long enough to load Puppy into RAM. I'll now go and put Puppy on the HDD so that I have an OS to work from.

Lesson learned: Be sure to get a working OS on more than one input device. (I'd wiped MSOS prior to investigating the machine much).

Thanks again, Dewbie. Have a pleasant weekend.

PS - Yes, I will run puppy pfix=ram option. Very Happy
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Karl Godt


Joined: 20 Jun 2010
Posts: 2677
Location: Kiel,Germany
PostPosted: Sat 01 Sep 2012, 02:00    Post subject:  
You can make a machine unbootable if you manage to thrash the MBRs everywhere in attached bootdevices like
Code:
while read maj min size device;do
[ -b /dev/$device ] || continue
[ "`echo $device | grep '[0-9]$'`" ] && continue
dd if=/path/to/puppy.sfs of=/dev/$device bs=1 count=512
done<proc/partitions


dd is altered here to overwrite only the MBR and not more with " bs=1 count=512 " . Without that blocksize and count restriction also the superblocks of the first partitions would get overwritten plus many files located physically after the superblock up to the size of the .sfs .
The " cp " command ( copy ) would behave like dd .
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Sky Aisling


Joined: 27 Jun 2009
Posts: 592
Location: Port Townsend, WA. USA
PostPosted: Sat 01 Sep 2012, 02:08    Post subject: Is it possible to make a machine *unbootable* using Puppy?
Subject description: [SOLVED]		  
Thank you, Karl
I managed to get the CD drive to work long enough to load Puppy-431 into RAM.
The machine is Dell Inspiron/4000 with Pentium III and 512 RAM.
I did a frugal install to HDD then added Shinobar's SeaMonkey 2.10 en.sfs.
Both Puppy-431 and SeaMonkey 2.10 en.sfs are working without issue.
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glene77is


Joined: 17 Aug 2010
Posts: 108
Location: Memphis, TN, USA
PostPosted: Sat 29 Sep 2012, 07:02    Post subject:  
Sky,
Have one spare computer, with similar situation.

Will your computer boot from a USB flash-drive ?

If so, you might consider building a backup-boot flash-drive device.
Build a USB pen-drive to boot this PC by running:
* GParded to format the flash-drive, with bootflag.
* grub4dos to install the MBR, write a preliminary menu.lst
* copy your Puppy filesystem to the PenDrive.(4 basic files)

Also have one spare computer that boots only from Live-CD,
has NO hard-drive, uses a 16G USB flash drive for disk ops. Smile
_________________
Puppy Linux is more fun than a barrel of M$ monkeys Razz
glene77is --- {^,^} --- electricity is shocking, Memphis, TN, USA.
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Sky Aisling


Joined: 27 Jun 2009
Posts: 592
Location: Port Townsend, WA. USA
PostPosted: Sun 03 Feb 2013, 00:48    Post subject: Is it possible to make a machine *unbootable* using Puppy?
Subject description: Apparently, there is an issue with Samsung machine's getting *bricked*		  
Since I posted this, here an article that popped up today.

Booting Linux instead of Windows 8 *bricks* some Samsung laptops
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/booting-linux-instead-of-windows-8-bricks-some-samsung-laptops/

I posted here:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=682100#682100
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starhawk

Joined: 22 Nov 2010
Posts: 1824
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...
PostPosted: Sun 03 Feb 2013, 01:04    Post subject:  
Sky, have you found a replacement optical drive for the computer you mention earlier in this thread (I would hope so, since the relevant post was in August 2012)?

If not, I have several, and could send you one or two for cost of shipping. I'll make sure they work first Wink

PM me if interested.
_________________
siht daer nac uoy fi uoy od os dna skcor yppup Razz
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