While installing slack 8.1 i got this :

''<1> Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer deference at virtual adress 0000002e
printing EIP :
c013e8b3
* pde=00000000
Oops=0000
cpu=0
EIP=0010:[<c013e8b3>] not tainted
Eflags: 00010207
eax:c7741260 ebx:c7741200 ecx:0000002a edx:c7741200 esi:00000022 etc,etc...

process sync (pid:2334,stackpage:c7759000)
stack:c7741200...
call trace :[<c013ec09>]...
code : 8b 51 04 8b ...
Segmentation fault ''

-----------------------------after reboot :

''An error ocurred during the root file system check you will now be given the chance to log into the system in single user mode...

-----------------------------after i ran e2fsck -v -y /dev/hda :

'' The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem.
If the device is valid and it contains on ext2 filesystem (and not swap or vfs or something else) , then the superblock is corrupt , and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock :

e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Do this error messages correspond in any way to a damaged HD?
A badly formed partition table ,perhaps ?

Lastly i just wanted to know how can i be sure that this computer has two HD (without openning the case)

thanks for your help

The device /dev/hda is the entire hard disk. It is not a partition. Partitions would be indicated with numbers on the end.

Like the following:
/dev/hda1
/dev/hda2

/dev/hdb1
/dev/hdb2

The "a, b, c, d" are the drive designators and the numbers are the partitions in sequence on the drive. If you specified the incorrect partition during installation then the wrong entry was made in the /etc/fstab file and perhaps also in /etc/lilo.conf.

If you reboot the install CD and login, you can use "cfdisk /dev/hda" to view the drive and the partitions. It will also report the partition type and the boot partition. After the kernel boots you can use [shift][PgUp] to review the kernel messages. The kernel will report all hard disks that it is able to detect.

At this point I would recommend that you reinstall. A corrupted file system can be a source of very unusual problems.

thanks a lot for the tip excalibur .

i meant , that computer is still not working , the owner took it to a tech guy cause it was having problems for quite a while and i thought it was windows related , i guess not every computer problem is , right ?