Guest Underdog Posted October 15, 2004 Report Share Posted October 15, 2004 Hi - I first installed MDK 10.0 with the boot.iso in May . . . some packages could not be installed but I continued anyway. After the install things worked ok and lately I have begun to realize that some errors might have been caused by being unable to install those packages. For instance, I tried to install LinNeighborhood later, but it said it could not because I was missing packages. I was very happy to be on the road away from Windows however. Then the Beta 10.1 came out and I burned the isos to CDR/W. The Beta seemed fine but realized it was more for QA that general use. Then I saw the 10.1 came out with an almost Official version (latest version) . . . I thought I would get away from the Beta so I burned the 10.1 isos onto the CDR/Ws. When installing this new version, several packages could not be installed. After installing it seemed everything was fine, but Konqueror would crash all the time. So I thought I should just go back to 10.0 from the boot iso. There would be errors formatting and I would have to start over. What a pain I thought. So I thought I would just reinstall 10.1 and just deal until a more stable version was released . . . I think I heard in Nov. sometime. Thanks for listening to the long intro to my problem. Now when I try to reinstall mdk 10.1: 1. I must use my slave CDR/W drive because using my DVDROM master to install is fine untill after the package selection it says basepackage not defined (solution is to use the slave - found that in this forum somewhere for the initial install of 10.1 and it worked but when reinstalling it nowgives me the following errors) 2. When I do use the slave the formatting of hda1 ext2 for / fails 90% of the time. An error message is displayed "Error formatting ext2 on hda1". If I retry it will hang indefinately. 3. The 10% it formats correctly, I will select my packages to install and then it will begin installing. However it does 2 bad things: 3a. It will get through 1 - 99 % of the install and just hang . . . when I click see details it will show me the packages installing and it will hang on a different one each time. 3b. Before it hangs, it will present me a package .rpm that it could not install and asks if it should continue (WHY NOT A RETRY BUTTON instead of OK or CANCEL). Each time I install and get to this stage, it seems a different package in the process is unable to be installed, but the package from a previous install that couldn't be installed . . . installed fine this time . . . I wondered if I had enough space so I increased the partition size to include the whole 20GBs of the main drive . . . but when I pick the packages, it says the total size never gets above 7 GBs . . . 4. In the past 2 weeks I have had only 2 installs that made it all the way through (with packages it could not install) . . . the kde "Start" menu had no applications listed, but I could use the Run command to do konqueror but I had no internet access. . . Here are my system specs: HP Pavilion 8575C PIII 550MHz 386M RAM QUANTUM FIREBALL 20GB HD (MASTER) SEAGATE BARRACUDA 120GB HD (SLAVE) - connected over an ATA PCI Serial Bus controller card because my BIOS will not recognize a drive over 32 GB DVDROM (MASTER) CDR/W(SLAVE) the CDRW drive is newer as is the BARRACUDA drive . . . when I installed MDK 10.0 for the first time I found I needed the ATA PCI Serial bus controller and just got it in June. Could that be messing up the formatting? Since my base system is so old compared to other posters . . . should I try a lower version 9.2? should I try a different distro? The packages that couldn't be installed . . . does this happen to everyone? Do I get bad isos? Am I missing something? Any help would be appriciated! Thanks! Jason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted October 15, 2004 Report Share Posted October 15, 2004 okay, long posting. short answers. :) first of all, i bet you got some corrupt download-isos. you should make a md5sum check of the isos when you burn them. that way, you will be sure that everything is fine. second, install your system in several partitions. one for /root (/) one for additional ram (/swap) one for the home user files /home) and so not use ext2. best thing is using reiserfs. very stable and easier for the system to handle in case something crashes. third: set up some mirrors via easyurpmi http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ and update your system. this should kill most problems you encountered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted October 15, 2004 Report Share Posted October 15, 2004 I see three different issues, all working at the same time. 1) Bad iso/burn. This is the early or middle fail problem. As arctic said, md5sum for integrity 2) Turn of acpi and apic. This is the most common possibility for the later fail problem. 3) Bad Hardware, either drive or ram. Windows will use bad hardware where linux is less forgiving. Your computer's history is best to diagnose this particular posibility. Had any odd trouble before linux? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gadgetgirl Posted October 16, 2004 Report Share Posted October 16, 2004 I see three different issues, all working at the same time.1) Bad iso/burn. This is the early or middle fail problem. As arctic said, md5sum for integrity 2) Turn of acpi and apic. This is the most common possibility for the later fail problem. 3) Bad Hardware, either drive or ram. Windows will use bad hardware where linux is less forgiving. Your computer's history is best to diagnose this particular posibility. Had any odd trouble before linux? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I appreciate the tips you and Arctic gave since my experience with 10.1 is very similar to Underdog's. I checked the MD5 Sums, reburned the ISO's several times, and the installer consistently failed to format the drives about 80% of the time, trying to format as ext3. I also had aspi and apic turned off. I was able to limp through the formatting in expert mode, and after several package install attempts with package not found errors, I got an install where the missing packages were non-critical enough to fix after install. This was consistent across two of my machines, a VIA mini-itx and a Dell 4550 P4. I never had these types of issues with Mandrake 8, 9, 9.1, 10. (same hardware) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted October 16, 2004 Report Share Posted October 16, 2004 Hello gadgetgirl. Can you get your hands on another CDROM drive. I am starting to suspect that your present CDROM reader may be faulty and not reading consistently correctly. Especially since resulting behavior is all over the place and random. Your actual CDROMs could very well be OK themselves though. Just an idea but worth considering. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanrev Posted October 19, 2004 Report Share Posted October 19, 2004 to control your CD reader you can copy one of your Cd unto the hard disk & see if there is any read/write fault during the process a combination of CD burning hardware & CD reading device is worth the check I have had to remove my old Cd reader which was not reliable any more Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Underdog Posted November 4, 2004 Report Share Posted November 4, 2004 well . . . I keep trying and to no avail. I decided to try my 10.0 Official boot.iso, but it wil succeed so far as to be doing the install and freeze at a random time during the install. I have gone back to the 10.1 install and have been doing a text install. When I successfully format my hda, then it will freeze at random times in the installing of packages. After this happens, I restart the install and when I try to format hda again I always will get "error: ext2 formatting of hda1 failed at /usr/bin/perl-install/fs/format.pm line 80." What is it trying to do at line 80? I have had this HP 8575C since 1999. I have tried installing on the slave HD as well and get the same results. Could my motherboard just need to be replaced? One thing to note, I do have an ATA Serial Bus Controller PCI card. This is so my BIOS will recognize my slave drive which is > 32GB . . . could this be conflicting somehow? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre04 Posted November 5, 2004 Report Share Posted November 5, 2004 (edited) Hmmm... While reading I suspect the hardware over other potential issues. 2 CD/DVD drives, One SATA, and 1 IDE drive. Most HP/Dell/gateway systems only run 2 IDE channels, and you need the slave/master settings correct. I don't appreciate the IDE cable design much = Looks too easy to damage each end of the header during removal... cheap to replace however. You may want to double check your cable settings and/or cables. To install, all you need is a CD, unless you got the DVD version... Drop one of the CD/DVD drives off during installation. I would disco the DVD first myself... then see how it runs. Oh yah - physically pull the data cable off the disco'd drive... Just to be sure. If that config still gives you issues, leave the DVD disco'd and pull the SATA PCI card, and try again... System at stock speed I assume on the HP - They don't overclock so good... if at all .... New stuff in Old system can cause issues... somthing above might just fix it, and it won't cost ya a dime. Being a cheap-skate when it comes to PC's comes naturally to me (grin) and I have learned to check the inexpensive (or free) things first... HTH! Edited November 5, 2004 by Pierre04 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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