ThinkPad 380ED fdisk trouble

zytsef · 07-12-2006, 03:30 PM

I'm been trying to get slackware 10.2 on a couple of old IBM 380EDs with 16 MB RAM. Every time I try to run cfdisk I get:

Code:

/bin/sh: Can't open cfdisk.bin

next I try fdisk resulting in:

Code:

attempt to access beyond end of device
01:00: rw=0, want=1-73835997, limit=6464
... a few other attempts to access beyond end
Segmentation fault

I think it may the fact that they have such a small amount of RAM, but I don't know for sure. All the kernels I try result in the same problem

onebuck · 07-12-2006, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zytsef

I'm been trying to get slackware 10.2 on a couple of old IBM 380EDs with 16 MB RAM. Every time I try to run cfdisk I get:

Code:

/bin/sh: Can't open cfdisk.bin

next I try fdisk resulting in:

Code:

attempt to access beyond end of device
01:00: rw=0, want=1-73835997, limit=6464
... a few other attempts to access beyond end
Segmentation fault

I think it may the fact that they have such a small amount of RAM, but I don't know for sure. All the kernels I try result in the same problem

Hi,

The minimum ram requirement is 16 MB ram for Slackware 10.2 to run but to use X the minimum is 128 MB.

First, did you md5sum your install cds' you downloaded. I'm finding a lot of newbies' are having problems with their downloads. Thus failing to do a md5sum check to confirm a valid download.

Now for another possible problem. Do you have windows xp on the drive? If so do some maintenance on the drive with a defragment. Then resize the drive to allow the installation, you can use qparted or fips. Of course the windows option would be partition magic but why pay for something that can be done with free open source.

One thing you could do is;

Code:

#dmesg |grep hd                 #see the storage device
#fdisk -l                       #what is shown after init

zytsef · 07-12-2006, 04:49 PM

Nah, there's nothing wrong with the disc, I use it for all my other systems. Seems that this particular model has problems booting from cd though; Seems to boot just fine, but there's obviously something wrong. I'm making floppies to boot from now, which seems to work.

Problem solved, I guess. Thanks though.