Sometimes the most obvious things will slap you in the face...are you sure lilo.conf is set correctly? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hallenbeck" <chuckh@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Speakup Distribution List" <speakup at speech.braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 4:45 AM Subject: unbootable hard disk > Hi gang, > > What else should I look for? I have a brand new machine with a 40 > GB Fujitsu HD and I am installing a Slackware 8.1 distro with > speakup and an external doubletalk. The installation was made > from a set of diskettes and went without a hitch. The root > partition was large because I need a lot of space for /tmp and > perhaps /var in addition to the usual miscellaneous stuff. It is > about 4 GB and is the first partition. I marked it active with > fdisk just in case, but installed lilo to the MBR anyway. The > software and the general configuration is similar to my own > system. I made a couple of boot disks during the installation > process, and it is fortunate that I did, because the system will > not boot from the HD. It boots fine from the floppies I made, but > not from the HD. > > I checked the bios setup program (a royal pain in the ass) and > saw that the HD was detected as the primary master, and that it > was selected as the second priority boot device, right behind the > floppy. I checked and double checked the installation (in fact I > did it more than once) being certain to install the kernel from > the installation boot floppy, but nothing. No error messages, no > nothing. It acts as though the HD were simply not present,. and > yet the bios recognizes it, it is on the list of devices to boot > from, and it works fine when booting from a floppy. > > Well maybe not entirely fine. One more symptom. When I boot up > from a floppy and pay attention to how it is working, the HD is > extremely sluggish. Checking the data transfer rate with hdparm > -t, I get about 10% the rate I get on my own system. Also, the > hdparm command is unable to set the DMA option with the -d1 > option. What happens is that the hdparm command causes a 60 > second delay after which the system resumes functioning but > without the DMA setting changed. > > I am dealing with some idiots at a computer store who are > convinced the problem is with Linux, and I am equally stubborn in > insisting that it is not. > > Any notion of what I might be overlooking? This is incredibly > frustrating. I gave the folks at the store permission to wipe out > my root partition if they needed to, hoping they would put a DOS > or Windows OS on it to check it out, but they happen to have a > Redhat 6.0 disk lying around and are spinning their wheels trying > to replace Slackware 8.1 with Redhat 6.0 because they suspect > there is a hangup when Linux tries to use a raid personality. > > Thanks for any ideas. > > Chuck > > > -- > The Moon is Full > So visit me sometime at http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup >
