Error Installing Mandrake

[haze03]

When installing it stops and I get an error: fsck failed on /dev/hda9 with exit code 8 or signal 0. I have tried several times and reformatted the drive ith no luck. It is a brand new Seagate Barracuda 200GB nad the distro is Mandrake.

 

[Nothinman]

Error number 8 is "Exec format error", make sure the media is good and the ISO isn't corrupt.

 

[haze03]

No that is not the problem. I even re-downloaded to make sure. A google search says it is an operational error, but that doesn't tell me much. Anybody else have any ideas? I want to get this setup asap.

 

[n0cmonkey]

So, if you spent the time to redownload it, the MD5 sums didn't match? Or did you just blindly redownload?

 

[haze03]

I don't know. I deleted the old .iso and instead of downloading with firefox I downloaded with IE from Linuiso.org. New CD and same problem. The rest of the install works fine. Just when I tries to read teh last partition, the big /home partition I get that error. It asks do I want to correct and if I say yes or no it brings me back to the custom partition setup. When I hit done it formats all the other partions, comes to the last one, which is /home and after about 4 minute sthe error fsck failed on /dev/hda9 with exit code 8 or signal 0 comes up. Though this last time I got rid of the /var and the /tmp I had before /home, so I got the error on /dev/hda6 instead of /dev/hda9.

 

[Carrot44]

What version of Mandrake?

 

[haze03]

The most recent, 9.2 I think it is.

 

[drag]

Could be a bad sector or bad hunk of the harddrive that the formatting is choking on.


Assuming that you don't have anything you want to keep on the drive... (cause this will destroy any information on it)

Also assuming that your working on the primary master IDE device. (otherwise use hdb hdc or hdd to match your setup.)

Try what is incorrectly called a low level format, which is realy just zero'ing out on the harddrive.

Boot up with the installation cdrom, hit ctrl-alt-F2 (or get to a command line any way you can) to get to a console terminal. Log in as root, and try this command:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

That will fill your entire harddrive up with zeros. Obliterating most traces of any partitions or any files or anything on the drive.

It can take very long on a big big drive, but it should do it's job without much commenting until it reaches the end of the harddrive and exits cleanly exept for a small error.

It will choke and complain on any bad part of the harddrive and is a decent physical media test.

 

[haze03]

Great, I'll try that. Thanks.

 

[haze03]

well it isn't a hard drive problem. I formatted teh drive, moved it to my main box and isntalled from there. It went off without a hitch. So I nuked it and tried in the K6-2 box and I got the same stinking error. It must be something with the hardware, but I have no way of knowing what. =(

 

[n0cmonkey]

You aren't overclocking are you? Have you tested the ram?

EDIT: Also, test your IDE cables. I've been having problems with those recently...

 

[haze03]

I'm overclocking a bit from 450 to 500. It goes higher, but the stock heatsink and fan couldn't cut for long up times. My first thought after realizing it was a hardware issue was to take out the old 64 MB generic RAM and just go with the 256 PC133 CL2 Crucial, but unfortunately that wasn't it. Maybe it is the video card. It is a really old 4MB Diamond Stealth 3D AGP card. I have a Voodoo 3500TV card lying around, but it doesn't fit quite right in the AGP slot on this motherboard. I can try different IDE cables, but I used the ones that came with the hard drive so they are brand new. I am going to try my lite-on CD-RW instead of the DVD-ROM and also a new video card and see if that works. I just can't figure out why the install works all teh way to the same point every time. Maybe the motherboard does have trouble with teh size of teh hom partition at 180+Gb even though the partitioning program has no troubel reading it correctly.

 

[haze03]

Works flawlessly on my main PC, an XP 1700+, but that doesn't do me any good. When I move the hard drive back to the old box I get a file system check failed error and a bunch of inode errors. So I guess I am SOL since I can't get it to work.