Re: [tlug] RH9 install probelm: error enabling swap device

[Jean-Christian Imbeault <jc@example.com>]

Stephen Lee wrote:
> 
> You could fit practically any number of logical partitions you want into
> one extended partition.

True. While trying to figure out what is going wrong I re-read the fdisk
man page and got a bit more informed ;)

> How big is your primary partition? Have you run into a size limit?  e.g.
> 8GB?

No. I have the installer make a small, 128M, boot partition. I just
can't seem to get passed the disk partition installer phase. Even when I
try fdisk manually fdisk can't partition my HD.

> I suggest the first thing you try to do is go to the HD manufacturer's
> web site and get their diagnostic program on a floppy and test your disk
> out on that.

First thing I did :) Their program didn't contain any diagnostic tools
unfortunately. But it did happily format the HD and partition it (though
it only does windows partitions).

After partitioning with the manufacturer's software I tried the RH
installer again and it still had trouble partitioning the HD.

> Then try a CD-ROM based linux like Knoppix, partition your disk, mount
> partitions, put large files on them, make several copies and compare
> them.

Downloaded Knoppix. Installed. Used cfdisk to clear the partition table.
rebooted.

Used cfdisk to create new partitions but partitioning always fails at
some point. I tried to figure out from trial and error what caused it to
fail but could not find anything consistent.

> The four connectors are probably channel 1 master/slave and channel 2
> master/slave.  The HDD should go into channel 1 master.  i.e. If it were
> a cable it should go to the end of the cable.  Helps signal integrity
> that way.

Now that I look at the mobo and read your explanation that makes perfect
sense.

> Try skipping those boards/bays (bad signal path can probably screw up
> the signal a lot) and plug your drive directly into the motherboard. 

Good idea, trying ... RH 9 installer fails. Couldn't enable swap
partition. Tried a minimal floppy 'distro' (slinky) also. The fdisk
supplied with that distro couldn't properly partition the drive and
neither could the graphical cfdisk that with it also.

> Get new cables if neccessary.

I'm at wits and so I did but it did not change anything :(

> Some BIOS or drives are too aggresive selecting DMA mode.  Try lowering
> that with hdparm.

I can't even get Linux installed so I can't run hdparm.

> You can try changing it in BIOS too but you'd better
> verify it in linux with hdparm too 'cos the IDE driver could have
> changed it.  In the extreme case try turning off DMA altogether but that
> would make disk access very slow/CPU intensive.

This board's BIOS is very simple. The HD settings I can change are:

LBA mode enabled/disable (currently enabled)
Multi-sector transfers 2/4/8/16 sectors (currently 16)
PIO Mode 01234/Auto (currently auto)
Ultra-DMA 01234/disable (currently disabled)

I tried setting the PIO Mode to 2 and fdsk'ing again. Unfortunately I
get an "unable to seek on /dev/hda" error. The auto setting works.

I put the HD in another machine and my primary slave drive and did as
Michael Doughty had suggested a 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024
count=1'. I then tried to fdisk it and finally was able to write a nice
partition table with 12 entries.

I then did a mkswap on the swap partition and that seems to have ruined
the partition table somehow. The error is that 'partition * does not end
on a cylinder boundary'.

I'm giving up and buying another brand of HD. I have two Seagate 40 GB
barracudas here and can't get either one to work in two different machines.

If anyone has any last suggestions please let me know before I throw
them in the rubbish bin (or put them in a windows machine) ;)

Jean-Christian Imbeault