is the smaller drive a master or slave and which ide channel is it on and does that IDE channel have any other devices?
On Wednesday 10 July 2002 06:10 pm, you wrote: > I'm having a very weird trip trying to install Mandrake 8.2 on the secod HD > on this box. I'm running WINxp on the primary drive and want Mandrake on > the smaller (6 gigs). > > I have had many weird things occur, some that seem impossible. It's hard to > figure out which are significant so I that would lead to a sound diagnosis > and relevant guidance. But if you are patient and enjoy a strange tale, > please follow this . . . > > First, I installed Partition Magic on the WIN HD in order to make sure the > HD for which Mandrake was intended is OK. Maybe the issues raised at that > point are clues to problems that have come up during many subsequent > attempts to install M 8.2. > > On opening PM, it checked the HDs and reported it (on the smaller drive) a > series of 3 errror #116 which it offered to fix and apparently did. PM then > reported the primary drive with WIN XP ok but described the smaller HD as > BAD with an error #108. An attempt to format the drive ended in "error 04 > bad argument/parameter" and PM reports "unable to format drive." (the one > for which Mandrake is intended. > > I proceeded to boot into M 8.2 installation from the CD. I auto-allocated > the partitions (/ - swap and /home) and installed M 8.2 in the "/" > partition (later I tried it in the "/home" partition with no different > results.) > > All went normally until I got to the grinning penguins. The display seemed > normal. As soon as I clicked that I could see the penguins the system > crashed, leaving me a smear of the penguin color across the screen. The > machine was hung and needed a manual reboot. > > As I said, I tried it in the other partition. Same results. > > So I went to the linuxnebie forum with this situation and the answer > suggested that I try a "text" installation. I did. > > It too went normally. When it came to the end, I was prompted to enter my > user and password. I did. It was followed by a prompt that said > > [joeharkins@localhost joeharkins]$ > > And that was that. I have no clue as to what it wanted. Nothing that I > could think of worked except ctrl-alt-del which I finally used to get out. > > Then I tried yet another install, again on the "/" partition. on the 3rd > try (here come the wild and hairy part) - just as I was about to key in the > user PW I got a blue screen that then became the Mandrake First Time > welcome dialog in graphic mode. It prompted me to repeat my user name and > pw as well as the Internet connection stuff I'd previous entered. So I > complied. > > KDE opened up. I was in! > > I moved around inside KDE. Looked at all the goodies. Reset the screen res > to 800 by 600 (I'd not been prompted to choose one during install). Then > opened Gnome. looked around there - but (first problem) I could not get the > modem to dial. The error message suggested that it was a user/pw problem > but that seems strange since it never even gave back a dial tone so it > confuses me how it could be unable to make a connection due to a user/pw > problem. > > Anyway, I shut down the sys (logging out properly of course) and rebooted > into WINxp so i could send email. Then I rebooted back into Gnome again. > (Top of the world, Ma!) > > This time (hold on!! - curve ahead) upon reaching the login prompt I only > got as far as the final keystroke of the user name. at that point the sys > opened Gnome (which I'd set as default before ending the first session) - > without asking for a password. > > But since I was in, I looked around some more. Studied the obscurities of > the connection dialog boxes and then shut down for the night, again logging > out properly . > > When I rebooted in the morning through the boot loader, I was taken back to > that DOS-like prompt. This time I did not even get to finish keying in the > user name when the sys opened into Gnome. (see what I mean about weird?). > Again, I looked around in Gnome, opened and closed the menus, etc., but > changed nothing anywhere. I eventually logged out and went back to working > in WIn for a while. > > And that's the last time I was able to get into the Linux opsys. I have > tried all the above installs. The text install into either partition leads > to that meaningless (to me) prompt but this time there was no magical > opening of the door. Never could get past it again. > > And, of course, the graphic install leads me to that penguin smear. > > During some of the final attempts at reinstall I saw at least one dialog > box that did not appear during previous installs. For example, in one I was > prompted for the screen res. I choose 600 by 800 and when the penguins came > again, they were in that res - just before the color smear.. > > The final two attempts at text installs ended with error messages not > previously seen . . . > > "Segmentation fault; seems like memory is missing as the install crashes" > (That must as have been written buy a non-English speaker) > > And when I hit enter a second text message mixes in with the previous > message and says "switch to console f2 for a shell." > > Of course, none of that is of any help to me because the machine is hung > and no keys are functional. > > Until all of this happened, I ran the smaller HD under WIN 98 as drives > D,E, and F with G as the CD. So I believe the HD to be sound - even though > Partition Magic says it has problems. > > But the mystery is, how come I had a functional installation of mandrake > 8.2 for at least 3 sessions and then it went away and I can't install it > again? > > Hope you enjoyed the trip and I hope even stronger that you have some ideas > for fixing the problem. I'd greatly appreciate it. I was impressed by the > little I saw but wish i could have enjoyed it longer and more consistently. > > TIA
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