I recently tried to install the Debian OS(Linux) on a 25MHz 486 based (EISA bus)system. It has an NEC disk drive(EIDE;2GB; new, no os installed.), and an SIIG serial/floppy/EIDE ISA controller with its own BIOS.
I initially tried to install to a 500MB partition. When it tried to find bad blocks in the partition(read-only) it would hang up and need to be rebooted. Eventually, it passed this test, but, when the install tried to copy to this partition it failed with numerous references to freelist size problems(fext2 type file system). I cut the partition down to 50MB. The file system was created and the base os was successfully installed on the 2nd try. The system now boots the os and appears to be stable. I don't know for sure what went wrong here; if anyone can explain this please do(kernel/hardware mismatch?). I suspect that the hard drive needs to be low-level formatted. Is there a Linux utility or "package" that can do this type of format? When the os boots, it displays two indentical error messages. One is from eata-dma the other is from eata-???(Sorry about the lack of detail. I'm doing this from memory.). The messages complain that the BIOS does not have the DOS32 extensions that these drivers "still" need. Questions: Can someone explain what functionality I am losing by not having these DOS32 extensions? Will this, eventually, be a problem? and What, if anything, can I do about it? Thanks in Advance, Al Votolato My comments are my own, not those of my employer.
