Hello again, I couldn't deal with all the various layers of >>>s, so first, for reference, my initial email is archived at: http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2002/debian-user-200206/msg02559.html and you should be able to find any others from there.
In response to Ron Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): I did open up the case to find out if the Matsuthita was plugged into the Sound Blaster card, but I still couldn't be sure (though I think it's not). I did take digital photographs of the innards of the computer so someone else could check. A view of the whole thing is at http://SillyFick.tripod.com/zshelfspace/far.jpg and in the same directory, near.jpg is of the CD-ROM drive's ribbon's attachment point. The text above the connection there is "PANASONIC CR-5XX CDROM," and to the left of the connection (not visible in the picture) it says "PAN." I chose to use the sbpcd driver because the computer (before I killed it and started making it Linux) told me it was a Matsushita drive, and that was in the description of the sbpcd driver. And it works (so I haven't changed it). >Good. You noticed that the swap disk is 2x RAM? Thought so... I didn't notice; isn't it the linux ext2 that's 2x RAM? Currently I have it partitioned: hda1: 379.98MB Primary Linux Swap, bootable hda2: 48.10MB Primary Linux ext2, END of disk Also for reference, I have only 899 cylinders, so the >1023 cylinders thing with LILO can't be the problem. >> I've now retried: I did everything the same as before, except >> with the new paritions. When I try "Make Bootable Directly >> from HD," there is again the LILO failure. When I try "Make >> boot floppy," however, I get something new. It goes to a black >> screen with white text, and says: >Progress!! I agree! Still not done, though... >> Formatting the floppy... >> Measuring drive 0's raw capacity >> warmup cycle: x 200xxx 200xxx [replaced by 'In order to >> avoid...' and the xs are numbers that change] >> In order to avoid this time consuming measurement in the >> future, add the following line to /etc/driveprm: >> drive0: deviation=720 >> CAUTION: This line is drive and controller specific, so >> it should be removed before a new drive 0 or floppy controller. >> >> Formatting/Verifying Cylinder 1-80, head 0/1 >If I remember properly, I got the same messages. >> After cylinder 80, it goes back to dbootstrap and shows >> me the "creating filesystem on the floppy..." message, >> and as before fails there, with the "Creation of the boot >> floppy failed. Please make sure that the floppy was not >> write-protected, and that you put it in the first drive. >> Try another floppy if the problem persists." nessage. >> (Just to be sure, I tried, and the boot floppy doesn't >> boot. ::laughs:: ) I also checked Ctrl-Alt-F3, and it has >> the same messages as before, when it didn't write anything >> to the disk, and just failed at creating a filesystem. I am currently booting from the rescue floppy, loading the root floppy, and have also loaded the drivers from floppies - all of which I made on another computer from the CD (official Debian 2.2r6 binaries, disk 1, from TuxCDs). >Network installation is really easy... Not an option; I don't think there's a card in there, and aside from that I lack the network itself. Ah well. In response to Kent West ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): I did open the case and check to see what the CD-ROM drive's plugged into; see above. The CD I'm using is definitely burned, but at the moment that doesn't seem to be an issue any more. >What's the problem again? The problem at the moment is that I can neither make the hard drive bootable, nor can I make a boot floppy. >Does the system boot off the installation CD? The system at the moment is booting off of the rescue floppy, and then I laod the root floppy. Since I've already loaded drivers from floppies and installed the base sysetm (several times) from CD, I now just mount pre-initialized partitions so I don't have to redo that. >Does the install work fine until you try to make the hard drive bootable? The installation does work fine until I get to making the hard drive bootable or making a floppy. >Do you get any error messages at that time? I get LILO failure error messages when I try to make the HD bootable, saying "LILO wasn't able to install ... the most common reason why LILO fails is trying to boot a kernel that resides at a location on the disk higher than the 1023rd cylinder" ... etc. When I try to make a boot floppy, it seems to write the information to the floppy in a black-with-white-text screen, and then comes back to the dbootstrap screen, gives me a "making a filesystem on the floppy..." message, and then gives me an error: "Creation of the boot floppy failed. Please make sure that the floppy was not write-proteced, and that you put it in the first floppy drive. Try another floppy if the problem persists." My current partition sceme is hda1: 379.98MB Primary Linux Swap, bootable hda2: 48.10MB Primary Linux ext2, at the end of the disk I'm going out of town, so for about a week (after 06-18-02) I won't have access to the computer itself, but I'll keep looking at emails. Many thanks for your time and help (to both of you), -Mark Fickett _________________________________________ Communicate with others using Lycos Mail for FREE! http://mail.lycos.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]