Re: Hard drive problem

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

On Fri, 2005-05-06 at 09:11 -0500, Paul Cash wrote:
> I'm not very knowelegable yet about linux, but i tried to instal
> fedora2 with no success on an old compaq.

Fedora Core 2 is a year old now.
You should be installing Fedora Core 3, which is really an improvement
over Fedora Core 2.

[ SIDE COMMENT TO OTHERS:  This is yet another situation where I wish
they called them Fedora Core 4.0 and Fedora Core 4.1, respectively. ]

> the installation stopped at a different place every time.

The Anaconda installer in Fedora Core 2 was heavily modified.  Most of
the bugs have been fixed in Fedora Core 3.

> I also tried installing knoppix.  It runs fine from the cd,  even the
> printer and internet.  But the konsole shows read write error for all
> entries as the installation progresses. Once the installation worked,
> but there were some parts that didn't function.  I thought there might
> be something on the compaq hard drive that would be intended as a
> requirement for reinstalling the original OS.

_Never_ blow away your Compaq "diagnostic" partition.

> So I tried a 2G old hard drive. I didn't have enough space for
> knoppix, but I tried a small installation of fedora2. Just x and
> graphical internet selected. It went through without any problem, but
> on rebooting, the computer said no OS found.

That's a BIOS to MBR issue.  Did you install GRUB in the MBR?

> I ran knoppix and there is about 1.84G of data on the disk.
> Part 1-ext3, active,10.73mb used,  part 2-ext3, not active, 1.36G,
> part 3-linux swap, 0mb.

Linux doesn't need any active partitions.
But it _does_ need something in the MBR that can boot it.

> Any ideas, what might work?

Boot-time issues are difficult to resolve because they typically have 0
to do with the OS.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                 b.j.smith@ieee.org 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
Beware of those who define their preference in terms of hate of
another option, and not on the positive merits of their selection



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