slack 9.0 install help

[paullyo]

Instead of using color.gz I had to use install.1 and install.2 but when I get to the install.2 disk it always has errors about bad sectors. I've downloaded it several times, even used different disks. I booted with bare.i then inserted install.1 at the prompt then when it's done it asks for install.2 and it always craps out. Any ideas?

thanks
paullyo

[Jata]

How are you creating the disks? Are you using dd or rawrite? Do they give any messages like success etc?
One thing to try would be to try the disks in another computer, but don't install obviously just to check whether or not you've got a duff drive.

[je_fro]

How did you make the floppy?

[paullyo]

I made install.2 the same way I made install.1, using rawritent ( I run win2000 pro). I just tried it again and here's what happened. When it kept crapping out I tried to mount my hard drive at the boot: prompt because I have a promise IDE card. So I tried it again without trying to mount the drive and the install.2 worked. But then I couldnt run fdisk or cfdisk after logging in because it wasn't mounted, I couldnt mount it from the root prompt either. Any ideas?

paullyo

[rid3r]

That's Slackware 9.0, right?
You use bootdisk, install-1 and install-2 because you can not boot from CD-ROM?

Disable booting from HD, PnP OS, powersaving in BIOS. Insert the bootdisk. Reboot. Hit <Enter> only once, when you see the boot: prompt, after bare.i is loaded and it asks you for ramdisk, isert the install-1 and then hit <Enter>, when it asks for install-2, switch the disk, then hit <Enter>. I had something similar when I hit enter before switching the disks.
Depending on what kind of harware you have you may consider making a bootdisk of any of ataraid.i lowmem.i old_cd.i pportide.i speakup.i adaptec.s scsi.s (read the README.TXT in ftp://*/*/*/slackware-9.0/bootdisks/)
If you have a flacky (that's the term right?) floopy drive, you may want to change it.

[je_fro]

Originally posted by rid3r
If you have a flacky (that's the term right?)

it's "flaky"

[rid3r]

thanks je_fro :)

[paullyo]

My problem is getting to the hard drive, I can get the install.2 disk to work if I dont mount the hard drive. But then I cant get to it with fdisk or cfdisk to set it up. The install.2 disk doesn't work if I try to mount the hard drive at the boot prompt. My hard drive is through a promise ide card. Usually when I run linux i just mount ide2=0xa400,0xa802 at the boot prompt. But for some reason it doesn't work when I trying to do this install.

ideas?

thanks
paullyo

[Ath0s]

I don't think you want the disk mounted to use fdisk (especially if there's no partition on it yet)

fdisk can use the device file (instead of a mount point) ...

So boot your floppies, and then use:

fdisk /dev/hda (or hdb, hdc, ...)

Once it has been partitioned, run mke2fs on it to format it ... then it should mount OK.

[plattypus1]

Also, if you've got the slack CD, then you might want to consider grabbing the "sbootmgr.dsk" file from the slack FTP site and using that boot manager. It'll allow you to boot from CD even if your BIOS doesn't allow it.