UPDATE -- I think I have it resolved now. The ubuntu folks encouraged me to try their installer, and when it failed in the same way as the stock Debian one they suggested it might be a DMA problem.
On their advice, when the installer got to the partitioner, I switched to a virtual terminal and turned off DMA on hda by typing this command: echo "using_dma:0" > /proc/ide/hda/settings And then I was able to make it through the install process. The packages installed and GRUB installed without errors. The system would not boot but the filesystem was not corrupted. SO I replaced the IDE cables with nice 80-conductor ones, checked again to be sure the BIOS settings were appropriate for the drives, and so far I have been able to run the ubuntu installer just fine. I will try the Debian installer again but I'm assuming this was just a hardware problem... Is there any way to test for DMA problems in the installer? This apparently only occurs in newer kernels (anything newer than 2.4.18) so I'm presuming it's pushing the hardware much closer to its limits. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
