Does anyone wish to recomend the BIOS settings for this? the current is

Disk samsung sv1021h-(pm)

type auto
cyl 16383
sectors/track 63
head 16
capicity chs/lba 8455/10205
transfer mode 16 sectors
lba translation enabled
lba translation mode chs

pio mode pio4/udma 100

Have you tried letting mandrake use an exsisting fat32 partition, i dont know much about it but its an idea

Is smart enabled?

What components have you replaced so far?

How big is your hard disks and have you tried to just create a small partition about 5-8GB and install linux on that then see at which point it stops at, if its the same i don't think the hard disk can be blamed.

What you mean by "smart enable" ?

So far

12 CDs 5 different distros including live CDS

4 different size/make hard drives

2 diferent memory chips

Burnt the install CDs with two different burners. and at different speeds.

Downloaded 6 times from different sites and checked the checksums on each with the correct software.

tryed two different keyboards. and have changed to every combination of BIOS setting I can fined.

I still get file corroupt and cant format file system even moved the hdd to another machine formated it with WIN XP as a secondary disk and then moved it back but still can not get the file off the CD

I have ordered the CDs from linuxCD.com should be here before I get out of hospital after jumping off the 12th floor :-(

How come windows xp runs fine on this machine?


Is it the CD drive? why does the format in linux stop at the same inode each time? any way of making a dos or boot floppy and making the file system from that ? i have tried partition magic...

From http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bio...dvSMART-c.html
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Some BIOSes have a specific BIOS setting to enable monitoring of hard disks that support the SMART (Self-Monitoring And Reporting Technology) feature, which can allow the hard disk to report, under some circumstances, impending failures of the hard disk. . The normal default for this setting is "Disabled"
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Have you tried to run knoppix without having any hard disks at all, just the cd rom drive, what bios do you have?

I have ami bios and there is an option fo set everything to failsafe settings

am i right in thinking that no matter what you try to do that the linux format wont work but the ms file systems does work?

Um... i accidently clicked on the buddy icon and it set you as a buddy, sorry about that, i didn't mean to, its just that i use the middle click button to pan around and in opera that is open in new window.

I will check out the BIOS and the SMART settings.

I will try with the HDD removed and see if K will run. I have just downloaded Debian 10.1 R3 iso and will see if I can find the checksum before burning this to a new CD on a mates machine.

Yes MS file system formats 100% LINUX FS ext2 or ext3 does not work. It gets to inode table 56 of say 73 and hangs. even if i do a block check the block check hangs and this happens on several disks not just one paticular disk.

I will see if there is a bios upgrade and try that maybe somthing is "stuck" in the BIOS????

thanks for your ideas and help

I may have the HDD problem sorted but when I get Debian as far as installing the base system I still get a file is corroupt message always around the /instmnt/pool/main/.... area

I get this on release 2 and release 3 each of which ISOs pass the MD5 sum test 100% I am trying Mandrake again.

Can anyone please supply either detailed settings for a CD burner Nero or Alcohol 120% even I verfiy the data and it comes back ok CAN this be a bad ISO I very much doubt it. I have tried several brands of CD and two different CD burners on different machines. How much more of this hell can their be:-)

If it's Linux Format, you don't need to burn ISO's. The DVD is bootable. So was the one on Linux Magazine a few weeks back.

YES but the machine I am installing on only has a CD no DVD so that wont work. I cant find any CD mags in the shops with an installable Linux I have ordered them but they wont be here for a few days at least. I am off to the computer store to see what i can get maybe even a dvd drive

i bough a dvd drive and fitted it tonight two DVDs I tried with Fedora Core 3 failed the media test...what gives can all distros in my hands be BAD. I am looking for the 666 tonight on my scalp.

I have a new plan

Try knoppix again, try to get the graphics card working with it.

Then install it to the hard disk, but when you are installing it to the hard disk it allows you to choose the file system to use, changing the file system might make it work.

There is a guide here which made me remember, i have Knoppix 3.4 which i got ages ago and i like it.

http://doc.vic.computerbank.org.au/a...install_draft/

This problem is really strange

Wait a sec, think backwards not forwards, up until this point u've tried all the latest versions of linux, that might be the problem.

The newer versions of linux are designed for newer systems and the older versions are designed for slightly older computers, did you ever try an older version of linux. The problem might just be that you are trying the newer versions.

i don't know how new your computer or its hardware is so i had to guess.

If an older version works you could upgrade it instead of doing a fresh install


Like i said, i don't know how i come up with these stupid ideas

The computer is circa 2001 I will try and get an older version and try that, I am about to suffer wrath from the wife as I have spend 3 days of the holiday trying to get this working. Knoppix works fine from the CD will try and install it

If I run Mandrake with :linux noauto text i get up to the point of it going to wipe the entire disk and I get a

kernal panic fatal exception in interupt
in interupt not sycing

I tought that the newer Linux would retain backward compatibility...?