Saved Boot param failures -- SOLVED

[bjorn]

When I reboot Puppy to have it load the saved settings I get a failure along the lines of dev/hdc and dev/ddc being write-protected. Is this something to do with a multisession CD? I instructed the machine to save the files to the HD but I burned the CD from another computer and this one doesn't have a CD-RW.
How do I find the files with error logs in them? Where are they located?

EDIT:

My solution.

I have formated the hard drive into Linux and a Linux Swap with cfdisk (I didn't want windows anyways) and have 131 megs of ram free from my 262, and which never decreases when I download because the swapfile is 5GB. I am still booting saved parameters off the pen drive because it works well, but maybe I will tempt fate and try again from HD. In anycase thanks to anyone who offered help. I am VERY impressed with this distro, and moreover the concept. These last few years I have become so annoyed with windows needing to take up 50 megs of my RAM rightout of the block with zonealarm, antivirus, anti-spyware, etc JUST so the machine won't be compromised, its pure stupidity.

Thanks

Byron

[Ian]

Errors are usually posted to the /tmp directory but a bit more info about your situation would be helpful.

[Gn2]

Which Puppy version - run as how -
If the option at log-off was chosen to save to hard drive - which one?
Confirm location by (fdisk -l)
Your error Msg means the save file was instructed to save to an non - writeable optical device - not a hard drive.

What is an /dev/ddc > (/dev/hdd ?)

[SAE140]

I'm experiencing a similar problem, so I thought I'd add it to this thread - hope that's ok.

Using version 2.12 seamonkey, booting from a CD re-writer.

When attempting to save settings to the CD (multi-sessional) - I get a "premature EOF on stdin" message, followed by various 'aborting' messages. This occurs with both CDR/W and CD-R media.
If the *same* CD is then re-inserted, the running script continues where it left off and the settings are then saved ok. It's the same situation whether the re-writer has been left mounted or not.
Dunno whether this is my kit, or a software bug. If more info is required, I'll re-create the situation and take full notes.

Just want to say that this is only my second experience with a version of Linux which I can actually get to run (the other being the full Knoppix 5 live CD), and I'm mightily impressed !!

Puppy Linux is clearly the way ahead ...

Colin

[Gn2]

Sae

Please open up own topic
AFAICS - the OP has not said he was trying to use as multi-session
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bjorn

First confirm hard drive names & location

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fdisk -l

OR > For all devices found @ boot probe

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 dmesg | less

The vertical separting line in above is upper-case key over \
Pauses screen output so all can be read

All system events, if distribution is Cfg'd correctly - will be logged
in various /var/log folders!
Temp files may be written to /tmp - but may not exist if proper cleanup procedures are scripted (or logs rotated)

Cd to that folder, view any using any built-in editor/File Mgr - OR use

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less | less  /var/log/mess*

Alternatively you may use

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tail /var/log/mess*

HTH

[SAE140]

Sae

Please open up own topic
AFAICS - the OP has not said he was trying to use as multi-session
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HTH

Ok - have done so - apologises.
Colin

[bjorn]

For now I have avoided the problem of the hard drive by saving with a pen drive but I am still running into an issue with saving files, the Pupget downloader for example will download fully and then inform me of an error. If I download a package myself to the harddrive and try to decompress it I get errors. The drive is a Maxtor 10GB with NTFS and I suspect puppy doesn't like it much. I have checked it in windows with chkdsk and there are no errors and I defraged before using it. It doesn't appear to be failing or damaged.

This is my fdisk -l

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   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1243     9984366   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 259 MB, 259522560 bytes
17 heads, 63 sectors/track, 473 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1071 * 512 = 548352 bytes

This was the error I had when trying to use the HD to save my config files:

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 pup_save on /pup-rw FAIL
dev/hdc write-protected FAIL
dev/ddc write-protected FAIL
mounting /dev/loop1/ on /pup-rw FAIL
ISO ext pup_1991AX3 fail
VFS cant find ext3 on dev/loop1

then it would try to load the kernal and remain frozen. I am using puppy 2.11 with seamonkey.

Also my machine has 260MB of ram, with puppy booted I have 39MB remaining, is this correct?

I expect I will be buying a new hardrive unless I can format the one I have now into FAT or Linux. How do I shrink a parition with fdisk? I tried to used ntfsresize but it told me "it was too risky".

Thanks for looking.

Byron

[Gn2]

SAE Thank you - that way YOUR help request will not get buried or forgtotten

Bjorn:

Your hard drive is likely just fine ~ any problems would have already been noted,
such as odd failures or repeated attempts to read or write to it.

Many Bios have the SMART report feature that notifies user at bootups.

Puppy save file Cfg. syntax is not correctly set.
It is stil trying to save to the optical drive
If you created a Linux partition for Puppy saves - was it formatted for chosen file system (ext2/ext3) ?

Do not use fdisk (Win or Linux versions) to re-size your hard drive:
Parted is one utility
Are you running Puppy in live mode, or frugal install ?

You could rename any present saved Cfg's. then go through
boot-up and see options.
Please see Forum How-to's & Docs