Linux Installation Error

[Mardawg]

I am two weeks into the world of linux and I am loving it so far!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have set up a "new" machine that I want to load linux on. It has a 2GB hard drive.

I began to run the install of RedHat 6.1 and when it began to copy files for the istall the machine rebooted. This was due to a hardware problem as my working definition of "new" was a frankenstein monster from my computer graveyard.

I have resolved the hardware problem but now whenever I try to run the install it goes through most of the startup files and then I get the following several lines of text:


running install...
running /sbin/loader
install exited abnormally -- received signal 11
sending termination signals...done
sending kill signals...done
unmounting filesystems...
/mnt/source
/dev/pts
/proc
you may safely reboot your system

at which point I of course reboot my system to arrive at the same error next time.

I have tried instead to install Mandrake, and Caldera Openlinux, I have tried to boot from floppies, and from cd.

in every case I arrive at the same error at some point very early in the process.

I have tried to run a 98 boot disk and fdisk the drive so that it will have a completely clean partition it shows that there is an extended partition with a logical partition.

When I try to delete the partition it will not allow me to because I can not delete the extended partition unless I delete the logical partition which it will not let me delete because it says there are no logical partitions to delete. This seems extremely odd to me.

Having said all of that I do not really care if the dos version of fdisk works except that I am curious as to the situation. My main objective is to install Linux on this machine.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[sig][/sig]

 

[rycamor]

You are probably having some hard disk corruption.

Try running fdisk/mbr (no space between fdisk and /mbr). This will delete the master boot record. Then try to fdisk again, and remove all partitions. Turn the system off, then reboot with the floppy and see if you can create a single main partition. This might not help at all, though.

I have had this problem with weird extended partitions in the past, and DOS fdisk is pretty limited. The coolest option is if your BIOS supports Low Level Reformat, so you can totally wipe your disk and start again. There is also a shareware utility called EFDisk (Extended Fdisk) that can do pretty much anything to your disk, including formatting Linux partitions. Don't know exactly where it is, but I'm sure a search at Download.com would find it.

Failing that, try another hard disk. [sig][/sig]

 

[Guest_imported]

If you can boot to the LINUX CD, exit any setup that starts and run fdisk /dev/hd?. The LINUX version of fdisk does so much more!

Otherwise, use the WIN98 bootdisk and start with CD Rom Support. Locate RawWrite on the Linux CD and use it to copy a boot and a root image to floppies. Boot from the Linux boot and root. Then run the LINUX fdisk.

You may need to contact the manufacturer of the hard drive for a repair utility. Western Digital had a program called WDDIAGS that would diagnose and write zeroes to the drive, really wiping all partition information. (Newer WD Drives have DataLifeGuard Tools that includes WDDIAGS functionality). That program comes with WD Hard Drive and will only work on WD. Gate way used to have a program, GWSCAN, on their website that would do the same for other drives.

If you can find those or the shareware mentioned in an earlier posting, that should do the job.

2 GB may seem small nowdays, but if you can fix it free, it's worth it. You could even put your LINUX Swap partitions on it, your basic LINUX sytem, or whatever. LINUX makes it easy to use as part of the file structure.