Greetings,

I am having problems installing Red Hat (both version 9 and 8) on a 160GB
hard drive I have. I originally bought a Maxtor and had Red Hat balk that
there was an "Error Installing Package". A couple of times that package
was the kernel, one time it was glibc, and it has been other packages
other times.

So, I returned the Maxtor hard drive (because one of the descriptions in
the error dialog was that it could be a hardware problem, and I have used
both sets of Red Hat CDs to make successful installations in the past) and
bought a Western Digital drive (still 160GB). I tried installing Red Hat 9
again just now, and I received the same error (but with a new package).

What are my options at this point? I let the installation routine do all
of the paritioning automatically, but should I do this manually and not
use the whole 160GB? That would be a bit disappointing, but I really need
to get Linux up and running at this point.

Thanks for the help,

Jeff

P.S. I also tried to install Mandrake 9.1 on the new Western Digital
drive, and it balked at not being able to install glibc and a couple of
other packages as well. So, I don't think it's distribution specific.

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On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:55:12 -0800, Jeff Krimmel wrote:

[...]

Here is the exact dialog I am getting:

************
Error Installing Package
There was an error installing perl-5.8.0-88. This can indicate
media failure, lack of disk space, and/or hardware problems.
This is a fatal error and your install will be aborted. Please
verify your media and try your installation again.

Press the OK button to reboot your system.
************

This dialog is obviously for the perl package, but the package varies by
the installation attempt. I have tested the CDs at the beginning of the
installation sequence, and the result is "PASS". Disk space shouldn't be a
problem either, since I am using the 160GB drive.

What gives?

Thanks,

Jeff

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Jeff Krimmel <madscientist03@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.01.30.23.55.07.89147@hotmail.com>.. .
> Greetings,
>
> I am having problems installing Red Hat (both version 9 and 8) on a 160GB
> hard drive I have. I originally bought a Maxtor and had Red Hat balk that
> there was an "Error Installing Package". A couple of times that package
> was the kernel, one time it was glibc, and it has been other packages
> other times.
>
> So, I returned the Maxtor hard drive (because one of the descriptions in
> the error dialog was that it could be a hardware problem, and I have used
> both sets of Red Hat CDs to make successful installations in the past) and
> bought a Western Digital drive (still 160GB). I tried installing Red Hat 9
> again just now, and I received the same error (but with a new package).
>
> What are my options at this point? I let the installation routine do all
> of the paritioning automatically, but should I do this manually and not
> use the whole 160GB? That would be a bit disappointing, but I really need
> to get Linux up and running at this point.
>
> Thanks for the help,
>
> Jeff
>
> P.S. I also tried to install Mandrake 9.1 on the new Western Digital
> drive, and it balked at not being able to install glibc and a couple of
> other packages as well. So, I don't think it's distribution specific.

Did you get a new controller card with the hd? One is needed since
the older ATA spec sort of "ended" at ~137 GB, so "older" contollers
and BIOSes have no way to cope properly with anything larger.

Even a year ago, the WD instruction sheet explained all of this --
assume other manufacturers did also. Did you try to use the E-ZDrive
overlay? An included contoller card? A controller card of your own
choosing?

What does your BIOS say about your new hd? What support for large hds
does it provide? What kind of computer are you using? How old?

Using primary or secondary IDE interface (am assuming it is an IDE hd
-- not scsi or SATA setup)? What other IDE devices -- CD? -- and what
interface are they on? Using CS or master/slave jumpers?

The point is that you should be able to get this running once it has
been set up properly. We need specifics regarding your hardware and
what you've tried already that failed. Get back to us with additional
info.

regards,
prg
email above disabled

"P Gentry" <rdgentry1@cablelynx.com> schrieb
> > Greetings,
> >
> > I am having problems installing Red Hat (both version 9 and 8)
> > on a 160GB hard drive I have. I originally bought a Maxtor and
> > had Red Hat balk that there was an "Error Installing Package".

>
> Did you get a new controller card with the hd? One is needed
> since the older ATA spec sort of "ended" at ~137 GB, so "older"
> contollers and BIOSes have no way to cope properly with anything
> larger.
>
> Even a year ago, the WD instruction sheet explained all of this --
> assume other manufacturers did also. Did you try to use the E-
> ZDrive overlay? An included contoller card? A controller card of
> your own choosing?
>
> What does your BIOS say about your new hd? What support for large
> hds does it provide? What kind of computer are you using? How
> old?
>

Or the OP could try to start up RH / Mandrake in "rescue mode" and
try to access the harddisk.
What does dmesg say? Is the HD recognized? Any suspicious messages
in /var/log/messages?
Can you partition the HD using fdisk / cfdisk? (I assume there is
nothing important on the HD yet).

HTH
Martin

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:16:21 -0800, P Gentry wrote:

> Did you get a new controller card with the hd? One is needed since
> the older ATA spec sort of "ended" at ~137 GB, so "older" contollers
> and BIOSes have no way to cope properly with anything larger.

No, I did not get a new controller card. I only received the software CD,
the cabling, and the screws (in addition to the hard drive itself and the
literature, obviously).

> Even a year ago, the WD instruction sheet explained all of this --
> assume other manufacturers did also. Did you try to use the E-ZDrive
> overlay? An included contoller card? A controller card of your own
> choosing?

The WD instructions told me to load the CD and run the hard drive
utilities. When I boot from their CD I get the following messages:

************
A:\>echo off
NWCDEX.EXE Version 2.81 CD-ROM file handler.
Copyright (c) 1992, 1997 Caldera Inc. All rights reserved.
Drive X: Driver 'generic' unit 0
Drive Y: Driver 'generic' unit 1
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
************

The CD assumes I have DOS or Windows already installed in order to work.
Western Digital makes it clear a couple of times that Windows and Mac
operating systems are the only ones supported.

I don't know what an E-Z drive overlay is, and I am just going straight to
the IDE connector on the motherboard.

> What does your BIOS say about your new hd? What support for large hds
> does it provide? What kind of computer are you using? How old?

I am using an Abit SR7-8X motherboard with the original BIOS. The only
interesting line I can find in the manual is this one:

"Currently, the BIOS can support the INT 13h extension function, enabling
the LBA mode to support hard disk drive capacities exceeding 128 GB."

> Using primary or secondary IDE interface (am assuming it is an IDE hd
> -- not scsi or SATA setup)? What other IDE devices -- CD? -- and what
> interface are they on? Using CS or master/slave jumpers?

It is IDE. One IDE cable has just the WD 80 GB hard drive, the other cable
has two CD-ROM drives (one Sony CD-RW and one generic DVD-ROM drive). I am
using the master setting for the WD hard drive.

> The point is that you should be able to get this running once it has
> been set up properly. We need specifics regarding your hardware and
> what you've tried already that failed. Get back to us with additional
> info.

Thanks for your help. Hopefully this new information might help trigger an
idea from someone about where I should go from here. I would hate to have
to go return the drive for a smaller one, but if that's the only option I
have to get this running, then I suppose that's what I'll have to do.
Until then, I'll keep checking back here and trying any other tricks I can
come up with.

Thanks again,

Jeff

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On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:38:56 +0100, Martin Blume wrote:

> "P Gentry" <rdgentry1@cablelynx.com> schrieb
>> > Greetings,
>> >
>> > I am having problems installing Red Hat (both version 9 and 8)
>> > on a 160GB hard drive I have. I originally bought a Maxtor and
>> > had Red Hat balk that there was an "Error Installing Package".
>
>>
>> Did you get a new controller card with the hd? One is needed
>> since the older ATA spec sort of "ended" at ~137 GB, so "older"
>> contollers and BIOSes have no way to cope properly with anything
>> larger.
>>
>> Even a year ago, the WD instruction sheet explained all of this --
>> assume other manufacturers did also. Did you try to use the E-
>> ZDrive overlay? An included contoller card? A controller card of
>> your own choosing?
>>
>> What does your BIOS say about your new hd? What support for large
>> hds does it provide? What kind of computer are you using? How
>> old?
>>
>
> Or the OP could try to start up RH / Mandrake in "rescue mode" and
> try to access the harddisk.
> What does dmesg say? Is the HD recognized? Any suspicious messages
> in /var/log/messages?
> Can you partition the HD using fdisk / cfdisk? (I assume there is
> nothing important on the HD yet).

Once I was in rescue mode, I ran "dmesg" and it spit a great deal of text
out the screen. Not much of it meant anything to me, and I couldn't find a
way to copy it into a text file (though even if I did that, I have no idea
what I could do with it). The file /var/log/messages was empty.

The partitioning feature works fine on the Red Hat installation. I have
done it automatically a few times, and a couple of times I have set up the
partitions manually. Only when it gets to installing the packages does the
routine balk. And it's a different package every installation attempt.

Thanks,

Jeff

--
Add an underscore between 'd' and 's' for email.

Jeff Krimmel wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I am having problems installing Red Hat (both version 9 and 8) on a 160GB
> hard drive I have. I originally bought a Maxtor and had Red Hat balk that
> there was an "Error Installing Package". A couple of times that package
> was the kernel, one time it was glibc, and it has been other packages
> other times.
>
> So, I returned the Maxtor hard drive (because one of the descriptions in
> the error dialog was that it could be a hardware problem, and I have used
> both sets of Red Hat CDs to make successful installations in the past) and
> bought a Western Digital drive (still 160GB). I tried installing Red Hat 9
> again just now, and I received the same error (but with a new package).
>
> What are my options at this point? I let the installation routine do all
> of the paritioning automatically, but should I do this manually and not
> use the whole 160GB? That would be a bit disappointing, but I really need
> to get Linux up and running at this point.
>
> Thanks for the help,
>
> Jeff
>
> P.S. I also tried to install Mandrake 9.1 on the new Western Digital
> drive, and it balked at not being able to install glibc and a couple of
> other packages as well. So, I don't think it's distribution specific.
>

Not sure about this, but upgrading to kernel 2.4-20+ will probably solve
this problem..

Jeff Krimmel <madscientist03@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.01.31.20.52.33.309885@hotmail.com>. ..
> On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:16:21 -0800, P Gentry wrote:
[snip]
> No, I did not get a new controller card. I only received the software CD,
> the cabling, and the screws (in addition to the hard drive itself and the
> literature, obviously).
[snip]
> The WD instructions told me to load the CD and run the hard drive
> utilities. When I boot from their CD I get the following messages:
>
> ************
> A:\>echo off
> NWCDEX.EXE Version 2.81 CD-ROM file handler.
> Copyright (c) 1992, 1997 Caldera Inc. All rights reserved.
> Drive X: Driver 'generic' unit 0
> Drive Y: Driver 'generic' unit 1
> Command or filename not recognized
> Command or filename not recognized
> Command or filename not recognized
> Command or filename not recognized
> ************
>
> The CD assumes I have DOS or Windows already installed in order to work.
> Western Digital makes it clear a couple of times that Windows and Mac
> operating systems are the only ones supported.

See below for tools you can download and run from a floppy using a DOS
system disk. I prefer the separate utilities myself for fitting onto
a floppy.

> I don't know what an E-Z drive overlay is, and I am just going straight to
> the IDE connector on the motherboard.
[snip]
> I am using an Abit SR7-8X motherboard with the original BIOS. The only
> interesting line I can find in the manual is this one:
>
> "Currently, the BIOS can support the INT 13h extension function, enabling
> the LBA mode to support hard disk drive capacities exceeding 128 GB."
[snip]
> It is IDE. One IDE cable has just the WD 80 GB hard drive, the other cable

Always safest to stay with one brand when you can, if your keeping
them both in the same box.

> has two CD-ROM drives (one Sony CD-RW and one generic DVD-ROM drive). I am
> using the master setting for the WD hard drive.
[snip]
> Thanks again,
>
> Jeff

Google is slow posting these last few days -- you weren't in this
(Sat) AM.

First thing to remember is that Google is your friend. Here's the
most pertinent, I think:
http://www.abit-usa.com/faq/mb/check160gb.php
which I found using this search
Abit SR7-8X 160GB
I did not check further than the above, since first glance suggested
to me that you can get this working with a BIOS upgrade. I'll look
more closely Sun AM.

You do have an "older" BIOS and IDE/ATA interface system -- the ones
that can recognize drives to ~137GB. It was the official spec when
yours was made. No one counted on hds getting so big, so cheap, so
quickly.

With a machine like my old PII-350, you would need to "replace" the
hardware for the disk sub-system, ie., a new controller card (or use a
"software" work-around known as a drive overlay manager, ie., E-Z
Drive). Even some boards only 2-3 years old cannot be extended with a
BIOS upgrade alone. Believe yours can -- see 48 bit LBA in above
page.

I would also suggest you check out the WD site for these tools (Data
LifeGuard):
http://support.wdc.com/dlg/
http://support.wdc.com/dlg/disclaim.asp
http://support.wdc.com/download/
The tools and diagnostics can be very handy. They _may_ be included
on the CD you got (and assuming it is a bootable CD).

It's late so I'm posting this without being _sure_ that above page
(ABIT) will solve your case. I'll check with you tomorrow.

hth,
prg
email above disabled

Jeff Krimmel <madscientist03@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.01.31.20.52.33.309885@hotmail.com>. ..
[snip]
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Jeff

Saving space. Here's what you need to do to narrow down possible
problems:
-- confirm the current BIOS ID on your mobo is CM (it's one year old)
-- if not, download the new version (CM) and install. Find it and
instructions here:
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/...ies=1&model=25
Instructions are a bit convoluted, so read/follow carefully.

-- make sure you're using the IDE cable that came with the hd. It's a
40 pin cable with 80 wires to shield the signals between hd and mobo

-- confirm that all IDE devices are properly jumpered and using the
same "method". That is, if you're using Master/Slave jumpers, all
devices should be appropriately jumpered as a Master or a Slave. If
using CS (cable select) make sure all devices are using CS.

-- carefuly check the BIOS settings after the upgrade.

-- for Win XP confirm that you have XP SP1 installed together with the
latest ATAPI driver. See this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1

[quote from the article]
You must meet the following requirements to use 48-bit LBA ATAPI
support:
You must have a 48-bit LBA compatible BIOS.
You must have a hard disk that has a capacity that is greater than
137 GB.
You must have Windows XP SP1 installed.
[end quote]
Wasn't sure what you have on the 80GB hd or future plans, so included
the XP reference.

-- try to install RH again. You might as well go with RH9 or even
FC1, since RH8 will need lots of updating (as will RH9) and future
updates uncertain.

If it's possible, you might want to put one CD on Pri/Slave channel
and the other on Sec/Slave channel of your interface/cabling. This
will allow greatest throughput re: CD-hd and CD-CD activity if you
plan to keep the 80GB hd in the box and/or do much burning.

I think this _should_ get you going. If not post again with specific
errors, the steps you took, and check on Google search.

hth,
prg
email above disabled