cfdisk freezes system


Forum: HD Install
Topic: cfdisk freezes system
started by: acadien

Posted by acadien on Jan. 12 2005,20:14
I am trying to do a DSL HD install on a pentiumMMX 200 - 64MB- 2Gig
I boot DSL failsafe, everything loads up in the terminal as su i run cfdisk but when it comes to writing the partition the system freezes. Can anybody suggest different approch.
Stuff i tried
-closing X an running cfdisk (FAILED)
-pre-partitionning with slackware install cd then running dsl (FAILLED)
-partionning hda5 (SWAP) and hda6 again failled
-

Posted by msuho on Jan. 13 2005,04:19
acadien -

When you prepartitioned w/ slackware, did cfdisk recognize those partitions, or doe it it say that the partition table is empty or corrupt?

If it's the latter, you could try specifying the drive geometry when you boot, and see if that helps. And, wierd as it sounds, you could try booting dsl with dma turned off ("dsl nodma") and see if that makes a difference.

Mark

Posted by acadien on Jan. 13 2005,12:16
With Slackware there is noproblem the partition is created and i can install Slack,but it's not slack i want it's DSL.
With DSL-cfdisk indicates that the drive is corrupted or sector 0 is unreadable. It looks like it's looking for a M$ type partition. Also during the bootup sequency at one point it does try to mount some partitions on the HD and it also doesn't recognize the partitions i'll try booting with a drive geometry. As for DMA i tried both on an off with no result. I installed DSL on my work machine together with M$XP and it rocks. The machine is for my mom and all she wants is to check her hotmail mail box.

Posted by acadien on Jan. 14 2005,15:48
Well after many hours and two babies that where working shifts last night to keep us awake......... my hd install still doesn't work
I partitionned my 2.1G HD with knoppix but still DSL reports a bad sector 0 and crashes after fdisk - sfdisk - sfdisk - mkswap /dev/hda1 - swapon (after mkswap with knoppix worked) basically anytime DSL touches th HD
I am very sad

Posted by swatthatfly on Jan. 14 2005,16:36
I've been trying to do the same thing as you, and I have the exact same problem. I did a lot of stuff for the past 2 weeks without success. I think that the whole thing is due to a mangled partition table. Before trying to instal DSL I was using Red Hat 7.2, and all the partitions were fine. I tried to install it on top of red hat, then I deleted all partitions and created new one, the deleted them again and created dos partitions and tried again to make new ext2, but the exact same result came out. Just to make sure the drive is in working condition, I reinstalled Red Hat, and it's all good. Why is DSL not working? No clue! I am very frustrated after searching the net for 2 weeks and comming out with nothing.  
Please post fix if you managed to install.

Thank

Posted by stracken on Jan. 14 2005,18:19
mine does not freeze but I can't seem to see all my partitions..

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=4196 >


This HD also works well with mepis and lycoris.  I will try flashlinux

Posted by acadien on Jan. 14 2005,18:58
I'm gonna try another HD tonight well this weekend. I had no problem on my work PC (P4-256-80) on hda5 and hda6. I know Vector Linux will install and it looks pretty neat but not as many clik-and-install packages. However both sytems have difficulties with the cf keyboard map there are no ê-ç-û-î  basiccally any double key combination to create these letters don't work not even ctrl-shift-2 (@) this is tought when you have to write an e-mail address.
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