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Topic: Hard Drive Lock during Install

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Klashe

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: Feb. 2004

Posted: Feb. 20 2004,21:27

Okay,
I'm on a IBM 560X Lappy with only floppy.
233Mhz MMX, 4 gig HD, 32 Megs of RAM.

HD partitioned in 3 : /dev/hda1 Ext2 - 3.5 Gigs for apps/work directories etc (this is set to boot), /dev/hda2 Ext2 - 300 Megs (for DSL Boot), /dev/hda3 100 Megs for Linux Swap.

I boot with the floppy fine. I get into knoppix (stored on the /dev/hda1), and then I do a DSL-hdinstall.... I say "Yes I have a partition for DSL" "/dev/hda2" "yes, wipe it out"

It says "Okay, it'll be two to 10 minutes."
It shows the little ascii timer...goes (working on HD) for about a minute, and then stops. No activity on the Hard Drive LED, but the ascii timer keeps going until i mouse the mouse or type on the keyboard, and then it freezes. I let it run the entire night, but its still frozen in the morning.

I tried booting to runlevel 2 (i.e. boot: knoppix 2 ) but the same problem occurs.

Couple of things that might be wrong but I'm not sure:
does /dev/hda2 need to be set as boot? right now /dev/hda1 is. I'm not sure that that's my CURRENT problem, but I think it might be a problem in the future.

My linux swap might not be set correctly. cfdisk recognizes it as a linux swap, and i ran mkswap on it, but I'm not sure if it took. Anything else I need to do to get it to recognize it as a swap?

Any ideas? I know the disclaimer that DSL-hdinstall is a work in progress, but I'd really like some guidance.

donkey wrestler Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 14
Joined: Jan. 2004

Posted: Feb. 20 2004,22:00

klashe, i have the same freezing problems you are having. But i have a pentium/75 mhz with 16 mb ram, 9 gb hdd. I thought my problems were related to my low memory, but know im not so sure...

anyway, the only help i can provide sbout swap stuff is to check your swap usage:

cat /proc/swaps

and

cat /proc/meminfo

im pretty sure that if cfdisk recognizes the id as swap, then the kernel will recognize as such on boot, but those commands will tell you little more.

JP

also, i saw a thread in this topic that said the disk you are installing to should not be mounted prior to running the dsl-hdinstall script, but i cant find it now.

Klashe

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: Feb. 2004

Posted: Feb. 21 2004,06:18

Well, just trying to copy all the files over to the partition (so /dev/hda1 to /dev/hda2 ) with just the same copy command as in the dsl-hdinstall script "cp -va * /dev/hda2" produces the freeze. It locks up after a random amount of files. I tried it twice and once it locked up on a file in X11R6 and another time it locked up on a /lib/ shared object.

Perhaps the hard drive doesn't have enough to keep up with the amount of writes. So I'm going to write a script that copies all the files over and then sleeps between each file. hopefully this will stop the freezes.

I'll let you guys know.
And if you think that this isn't the problem, please let me know.

Thanks!

Klashe

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: Feb. 2004

Posted: Feb. 24 2004,04:10

Alright, that didn't work either. It still frickin locked on me.

Anyone have any ideas?

alloydog

Group: Members
Posts: 6
Joined: Sep. 2004

Posted: Oct. 06 2004,18:36

I get the same thing when I try to install to the harddrive as well.
I don`t think it`s a memory problem, because I have 320 MB of the stuff !
It for DSL/Knoppix 2.78 (kernel 2.4.26) and the PC specs are:
Processor: AMD K6-2 450 MHz
Mainboard: MSI MS-5169 ver2.1, ver 3.1 BIOS
RAM: 320 MB PC100 (2x 128 + 1 x64)
Harddrive: see below:
1. Maxtor 80 GB HDD partitioned to:
-- hda1: 1 GB Linux
-- hda2: 1 GB Swap
-- hda3: 32 GB Linux
-- hda5: 32 GB Linux
-- hda6: 14 GB LInux

2. Seagate 1.2 GB HDD partitioned to:
-- hda1: 1 GB Linux
-- hda2: 282 MB Swap

I first thought the manboard was having a problem witht he large harddrive, as the BIOS cannot read it properly. (Say`s it`s a 65 GB disc) but after I tried an old HD, if got exactly the same problem !

The install gets to "Now th eroot filesystem is filled with data..." then a string of error messages, including:
hda: drive not ready for commands
hda: lost interrupt
ide0: reset: success
which repeats about three times before another screen load of gibberish (well, to me it is!!) ending in:
In interrupt handler - not syncing
The system then completely locks up, with only the CAPS LOCK keyboard LED, and the one to the right of it, flashing.
Even Ctrl/Alt/Del do not work.

I have tried running the install from the Xterminal window, exiting the window manger and X altogether, and starting DSL from runlevel 2 from the begining. I have tried runnigg DSL from the CDROM and from RAM (booted with `toram` switch).

a quick search on the net using a couple of the error messages seems to suggest a kernek bug, or horror of horrors a knkackered mainboard. I doubt it is the hard drive because I have tried two totally differetn drives, with one made on the 29th of May 2004!

At the moment, I`m running DSL from the liveCD loaded to RAM, but would really like to get on with case modding and bolt it all together!

7 replies since Feb. 20 2004,21:27

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