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Re: [PLUG] Does this sound like a lemon?
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Here is a list of things to try (not in order):
fdisk with a newer version of fdisk to remove all partitions.
fdisk /mbr to completely rewrite the boot sector.
Run the "lock" command from DOS.
Check the BIOS to make sure boot sector virus protection is disabled.
Autodetect the drive.
Consider a low level format.
Do an unconditional DOS format.
Do a full surface scan of the drive.
Try a different drive.
Scan for a virus.
Rob carlson wrote:
Forgive the length here...
I recently (yesterday) purchased a cheap system for home (a SD11 Via
motherboard with an Athlon 750 processor AmiBios, 20gb WD IDE HD) and
the behavior has been to say the least suspect. It came with WinMe on
it and the first thing I set out to do was to fdisk the entire drive by
booting up my Slackware 8.1 CD. It got to the booting CD, looking for
boot sector message and hung. After making sure all BIOS settings were
ok, I tried a Suse disk. and it booted into the install perfectly.
OK, after reading the Slackware FAQ I found that since the iso doesn't
have a bootable floppy image on it, that certain BIOSes may not
recognize it. ( I verified that my BIOS was current). I resigned
myself to making the boot disk and all the root disks (since I am
pretty attached to Slackware) and proceeded with the install. All went
ok, fdisk and all the packages-- until it tried to install lilo. It
said there was a problem and to install lilo manually. So I booted
from the floppy and all was there, and tried to run lilo. It
said "/boot/boot.b" could not be found. I looked in the /boot
directory and the vmlinuz and the system map were there, but no
boot.b. There was however a boot.bmp.b and a boot-message.b and
another boot-xxx.b file.
Here's where it gets weird... Also in that directory were command.com,
io.sys, a progra~1 directory, and a windows directory (along with a few
other non linux files). I tried to delete the windows stuff and it
said read only file system canot delete. Odd (keep in mind I fdisked
and did quick formats on all drives) Out of curiosity I booted to the
HD. Up came Windows ME...I decided to take another tack and booted up
a suse cd rescue disk and removed the /boot partition (/dev/hda1) wrote
the table, then added it back and re-wrote the table. I then booted up
with the floppy again. Lo and behold, no boot partition, but the
windows crap was now in root...
Grrrrr.... I then decided to get a windows floppy, did a win95 fdisk,
removed all the partitions, and booted the HD again. OK, no WinMe. I
reinstalled with the Slack boot and root floppies (still had the lilo
issue) and lilo still doesn't work. Further, the windows crap is back
in the boot directory. How could this happen? (The disks were made by
rawrite on an XP box, btw)
Further, I'm getting hostname kernel: hda: dma-intr status=0x51 {
DriveReady SeekCompleteError }
hostname kernel: hda: dma-intr status=0x84 { DriveStatusErrror
BadCRC}
in syslog unless I turn of DMA with hdparm. I googled and found this
could be due to cabling or a bad HD. I welcome any thoughts on those
errors (keeping in mind the above behavior)
Lastly, I'm getting FAT errors in dmesg
FAT Bogus LogicalSector size 0
FAT: Did not find valid FSINFO signature
Directory 1 bad FAT (Along with File system Panic)
So, did I get a lemon, or am I missing something obvious...
Thanks for any help.
Rob Carlson
_________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug
_________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug
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