Greetings,

I'm using a self-made Slackware 9.0 bootable CD using .iso from FTP on ftp.cerias.purdue.edu

My system is an Athlon XP 2100+ w/512MB DDR333 memory, two hdd's (40GB/10GB) and a 8x4x32 CD-RW. My 40GB is hda which has 2 20GB NTFS partitions, my 10GB is hdb which has 768MB for swap and has /boot mounted on hdb2 (64MB) and / mounted on hdb3 (~9GB).

I use the "expert" installation for selecting packages, but I cannot get past the package selection from group "A". After I have selected all the packages I want from A and continue, while it is installing my selected packages it will "hang" during the installation of a random package (that is to say it doesn't hang on the same package every time.) I have used this exact CD to install Slack 9 on 3 other computers recently.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
_gpf_

I would try just doing a full setup since you have the space. If that works, then you know it is something you did. However, if it doesn't, check the cd for scratches. Even though you used it before, maybe it has been damaged.

You could also partition that last drive different and make yourself a 750 MB fat32 partition and copy the cd files to that partition in windows. then, do an install from that directory. This would tell you if you had a cd problem or not.

Just for surety sake, I wrote down all the options I selected from group "A", popped out the CD and re-tried the install on my laptop. No problems at all. I was able to completely install the Slackware system with all the options I would have put on my desktop. (albeit, it didn't make much sense to configure a laptop that way )

Maybe its a hardware issue. I believe that the first time setup writes to the disk is when it actually starts the package install process (I could be wrong). You might try the second method I mentioned above about installing form a partition on your disk. This would at least take the cd-rom out of the picture and narrow down the possibitlites for where the problem lies.

How would I go about doing this? I know how to get all the CD files to the FAT32 partition, but once they are there, how would I install? Boot from my boot/root floppies and then point the source to the extra partition during the install?

you can install just like you have been (using the cd to boot). However, when you get to the source selection section, choose to use a different partition instead of from the cd. It will ask you for the location of the partition, i.e. /dev/hdc? and then the directory on that partition (which was just /slackware when I did it). Hope that helps.

I formatted hdb1 as a 850MB fat32 partition. This did not work when booting up from CD or from a floppy. The result was the same. The first time (CD boot) it hung while installing the floppy package, the second (floppy boot) during kernel headers.

Additional hardware information:
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (266Mhz system bus)
MSI KT4V Mainboard (VIA Apollo KT400, 8X AGP)
1 512MB DDR333 DIMM (mfg: Mircon)
Creative SB512 PCI
Creative Modem Blaster 56k PCI
MSI G3Ti200 Pro-VT AGP(GeForce 3 Ti200 GPU, 64MB DDR, S-Video TV Out/In, AV Out)
Onboard VIA Rhine ethernet adapter
40GB IBM Desktar HDD 7200 RPM (primary master)
10GB Maxtor HDD 5400 RPM (primary slave)
8x4x32 HD CD-Writer (secondary master)

i had the same exact problem. i come to find out hda had bad blocks. so after removing the drive and useing the other it went rite in. rh showed me the bad blocks while trying to install that and then rebooted itself to start over.

It is a rather old hdd, so the potential for bad blocks does exist. But I always format the new partitions on the system during install and it says "checking for bad blocks." Does this mean I need to run some other utility on the drive before I can install Slack?

i dont no of a utility but if you have a red hat iso floating around go thru that install and it will tell you where slack dont. or stick in another h/d and try the install

Well... my saga continues. I removed the hard disk from this system and put it into the system it was orignally in (PII/266, 256MB, Intel 440LX chipset). Just for kicks, I tried to install Slack 9 on this configuration. Now, I can't boot the Slack CD from this box so I had to use my root/boot floppies... but the thing installed just fine. Albeit rather slowly.

So now I can say it isn't the hard disk... what else could it be??

Something seems to be wrong, either with your Slackware CD, or your CD-RW, or both.

Try replacing your CD-RW with another and check the MD5 sum of your CD.

MD5 of CD checks out fine.

Do you mean my CD-RW drive or the media? The media is okay as I have installed the exact same package options on 2 different systems now and I'm not inclined to think it is the drive as the install failed even when the contents of the CD were copied to hard disk. That I don't have any other CD-RWs around.

I am finding a lot of google hits regarding the 2.4.20 kernel (the one that Slack 9 ships with) and the AGP on KT400 chipsets. Is there a potential problem here?

KT4V is said to have some IDE CRC problems. I don't know whether it affects hard drive performance. However I noticed several hangups of my Slackware due to EXT3fs errors. I will try flashing the BIOS. You'd better too.