On Wed, Oct 03, 2007 at 02:21:20PM -0500, Mumia W.. wrote: > On 10/03/2007 08:39 AM, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: > >[...] Surely a P-II that came > >with an 8GB drive (with no extra jumpers) should be able to use a 1 GB > >drive. The BIOS does show the correct size for each drive, detecting > >the same geometry as printed on the drive. > > > > Sorry about my other message. I had forgotten that you said that a 850MB > drive works fine in that machine, and Etch installs. > > However, maybe you should check the hardware anyway. The power supply > might be "on the edge"--able to support some operations and not others. > Use a boot CD or floppy to help you verify that the installation of Etch > succeeded. > > IOW, check that the files you placed on the HD are there. Write a few > more files to the HD, reboot, then verify that the files haven't changed. > > You can also copy the bootsector/MBR to a file using dd and check that > it looks right (whatever that is). >
Since I've never had Etch's installer actually _install_ grub to the MBR, I've always (on all my computers) had to reboot the installer in rescue mode and install grub. So yes, I can boot the installer and run a chroot shell (low-memory mode; won't pick up full rescue menu choices) and run grub-install and have it report no errors. Before installing on the new drive (after installing in the box), booted GRML and: - ran wipe -k /dev/hda - ran mke2fs -c /dev/hda - ran e2fsck -c -c /dev/hda The badblocks run on the mke2fs does a write/read-verify cycle on all blocks, and on the e2fsck does a read/write/write/read-verify cycle on all blocks. I also watched syslog during the whole thing and there were no errors of any kind showing up. Also, I can install onto and boot from these drives in my 486. The P-II hardware itself is rather suspect in general but this seems a rather specific difficulty. When I was given the box, it was absolutly full of cat hair. It had clogged the CPU fan and the PS fan. I cleaned it all out and fixed the fans (too cheap/poor to buy a new ones). The case has no fans so I cut a grill and installed a 3" on the rear. The BIOS checks for PS voltage before booting and while it occasionally finds a transient error, the non-booting is consistant. -- I've got a better computer: Athlon64 in the basement. The P-II is for upstairs with a small monitor for simple stuff like email or quick web browsing (ssh to the Athlon); sort of a slim X client box. The reason for the larger drive is that Etch barely fits on 850 MB and I can't keep OpenBSD up-to-date since security fixes are source-code patches requiring lots of room to recompile. Since this upstairs box is also a rescue toolbox (in that it has a modem, email, and web browser on its own) for getting help/software/whatever should anything happen to the Athlon, I don't want to make it dependant on the Athlon with something like NFS. Thanks for the ideas. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
