Guest smokestack Posted March 26, 2006 Report Share Posted March 26, 2006 I have a old 500 mhz system. Not too sure what else is in there. I know i do have 256mb memory. But anyhow i downloaded the iso images. I installed them on the system i am on now. I cant get it to install on my old system. I have tired two older systems and no luck. The cd boots and loads i go through the options to install. Then when it starts to install it gets error messeges. Its like the cd wont read anymore. Did the same thing on both systems. All i have seen to download is the i586 and faster stuff. What does that mean? Any help would be great. I just wanted two machines up to play with networking. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted March 26, 2006 Report Share Posted March 26, 2006 Assuming you checked the md5sums of the downloaded isos I would assume you have a bad burn. Make sure when you burn not to burn at any sped over 4x. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 26, 2006 Report Share Posted March 26, 2006 As it is a reasonably old machine, I guess it is more probable that the CD-drive needs some serious cleaning and a readjusted laser. This can be corrected by yourself easily. Open the CD-drive box, pull the laser-sled from a to b and from b to a several times gently and clean the lens with alcohol. I did that on several very old CD-drives and burners that refused to work and after "curing" them that way they read and burned data again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted March 26, 2006 Report Share Posted March 26, 2006 (edited) These days CD lenses are plastic, not glass, and so cleaning them with alcohol means totally destroying them... :P The lens mechanism shouldn't be touched by hand or any other means- the only usable way is removing the device top cover (this will void the warranty, but I guess its already expired) and blowing the lens with a can of compressed air (to be found easily in every electronic part's store). But besides that, the main problem with old CD-ROM drives is that they cannot read without errors any of the modern media dyes (their firmware knows very lttle to nothing about them...) even if their lens is completely clean and properly moving. You need to burn the ISO's on old school "short strategy" pthalocyanine silver/silver dye media, which are well readable by the big majority of old drives. Edited March 26, 2006 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 26, 2006 Report Share Posted March 26, 2006 These days CD lenses are plastic, not glass, and so cleaning them with alcohol means totally destroying them... :P Yeah, but it is an OLD CD-drive because it is an OLD computer, right? So no problem there.... unless he put a new drive into the machine, but then the thing should read the CDs as the firmware is quite new, right? :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted March 26, 2006 Report Share Posted March 26, 2006 (edited) Yeah, but it is an OLD CD-drive because it is an OLD computer, right? So no problem there.... unless he put a new drive into the machine, but then the thing should read the CDs as the firmware is quite new, right? :D It depends on how old the drive is. The last devices I had and used glass lenses were Ultraplex 40 Tsi reader ( $ 115 plus the cost of a SCSI card...) and Plexwriter 12/10/32S, also SCSI, at some $ 435 the burner alone... that was six or seven years ago. Anything newer I bought, including Plextor drives, had ultracheapo plastic lenses... And yeah, buying a fairly modern, ultrafast DVD burner for less than $ 50 and using it in that system will solve the reading problem- altough I doubt if burning DVD's will be possible in a system as slow as that one... Edited March 26, 2006 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest smokestack Posted March 26, 2006 Report Share Posted March 26, 2006 Not sure what the age of the drive is.fairly new cd burner. It doesnt have a brand name on it but the speed is 52x24x52. I have the same problem on two machines. It starts to install then just stops. I have made like 4 copies and downloaded the iso twice. Took apart the drives they are both clean. The install cd worked fine on this machine which is alot newer. I dont know whats going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted March 27, 2006 Report Share Posted March 27, 2006 For what it's worth, I ran Mandriva 2006 (and previous versions down to 6.0) on a PentiumII 350 with 192 MB RAM several years, and I could view all the DVDs I wanted, although with the occasional saccade. (I changed MB and CPU last week for a Athlon600) Just to say that IMO, this "powerfull" 500MHz with 256MB will do a fine job, I'm sure. Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilia_kr Posted March 27, 2006 Report Share Posted March 27, 2006 I also think that it is not the "speed" problem, becouse MDK10.1, Mandriva2006 and FC4 run relatively smooth on my box (see my sig. below). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted March 27, 2006 Report Share Posted March 27, 2006 Arctics method sounds quite ok to me. I personally use metholated spirits (white spirit) on cotton buds on lots of plastic optical things (even glasses) and have never damaged the surfaces. Spirits are almost identical to pure alcohol. Even back in my Medical Electronics days we used metholated spirits or pure alcohol on plastic and glass. I don't think the alcohol comment stands up when it is sold in MANY different plastics container types. If it is ok for cheap plastics, it is highly unlikely to not be OK for the purer, specialist plastics. The only time you do not try this cleaning method is if the manufacturer strongly specifically advises against using specific cleaners but usually they are just generalised statements to deter people. Why use Metho, white spirits or pure alcohol ??? Oils, dirt, grease, grime, tar from cigarettes especially that are vapour in the air settle on the lenses. In fact with personal computers and their users who are smokers, the main problem is the tobacco tars that create most of the problems. Many people assummed that the only reason that smoking was prohibited in labs was the fire and explosive risk. Smoking has almost always been banned in optical equipment rooms way back in history. If you don't think this is true and you are regularly smoking near a computer monitor and occassionaly wipe the screen with screen wipes ( hardly worth the money) then after 12months clean the screen with some metho on a white tissue and you will be amazed at how much brownish material you will see on the tissue. Now if you can find that on the screen, imagine how much more there must be on the lenses in the optical drives that never get the benefit of an occassional wipeover. The spirits dissolve these enough that the cotton buds can pick up this material. There are two extra very important benefits, firstly that the spirits displace (remove) any condensed h2o on the surface and secondly the spirit evaporates away completely leaving no residue. I do not believe that Arctics recommendation can do any harm. And I am sure he would add, "use a gentle and careful touch on everything" Cheers. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest smokestack Posted March 28, 2006 Report Share Posted March 28, 2006 I have been wondering now if maybe its a memory problem. Since it has done the excact same thing on two systems. Just seems too strange to me. And i think my brother switched the memory at one point to get more in one system. SO he might have messed them up somehow. They are two different sticks in there. I just havent had the time to take apart the other system to see what kinda memory is in there. Does that sound like it could be a problem? Or is that just wishfull thinking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniewicz Posted March 29, 2006 Report Share Posted March 29, 2006 Well if it is a memory problem then it is easy to diagnose. Download and run memtest overnight to check for memory errors. http://www.memtest86.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted March 29, 2006 Report Share Posted March 29, 2006 If using multiple sticks of memory, they should be of the same type (i.e. speed) even if not of the same value. I am not suggesting this is the cause but it should be considered. In some machines it will make no difference but in others it causes all kinds of instability. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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