Disc test fail

[Boris Cat]

Hi all from a linux newbie

This is my first posting and lets get straight to the point

Having downloaded the first iso image ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub...i386-disc1.iso

Checked the checksum... yupp all ok

I duely burned it to disk, reset the BIOS boot order to CD drive then HDD instead of the more usual HDD then Floppy and hit the reset button

and got to the test media bit

Media test fail : do not continue with installation (not that I was until I got all 4 discs)

soooooo burn it to a new disc....... same again, download disc1 again, burn that to CD, media test fail, try the other burner with a new disk fail again (I'm getting frustrated here )

Ok Unpack the ISO image into a folder on the HDD and run windiff
Comparing the folder to a cd, I get 600 odd identical files with NO errors

What is going on here?

Boris

[bob]

How about burning at a slower speed? I generally burn at 16X even though I've got a 52X burner. You are installing from the CD-RW that you burned it with, right? There can be read errors between two CD-R/CD-RW drives.

[u-noneinc-s]

try the media check again, but when you get to the installer screen, first type linux ide=nodma, then continue on to the media check. see if it passes with that option. It was a common "bug" on FC4 and FC5, but I've only seen a couple instances of it with FC6. If it now passes the check, continue with the install. Or if you are only checking the one disk (for now), next time you start up, run the same option and check all the discs and continue with installation.

Just FYI, If you are using high speed CDrs, burn at a slower speed (maybe 12x)

Someone posted earlier that you could turn off dma for the mediacheck and if the disks pass, you can turn on dma for the HD with some hdparm option (sorry I don't remember so you'll have to search for it).

[Boris Cat]

Already tried that with no luck slowest my disk burner will go is 8* which is a a lot slower that its 52* max speed

Boris

<<<wondering if he should go into the coaster making business

[u-noneinc-s]

Just to clarify, when you say you tried that, are you referring to both slow burn and #linux ide=nodma or just the slow burn speed?

[Boris Cat]

Whooopie

Using the Linux ide=nodma thingy works... disk passes the test

(as do the other 15 discs I burned either today )

Must be a bug in the installer

Anyways... guess its time to re-partion my windoze HDD into a 5 gig windoze bit and a 15 gig linux bit, but thats for tommorrow.

And see if my elderly PC with its AMD athlon 1ghz CPU, SIS730 main board with onboard vid/sound/lan , 256Meg of Ram and a 20 gig HDD can cope with a decent operating system as opposed to the win98 its running now.


Boris

hmmmm re-partioning without deleting stuff...........

[u-noneinc-s]

Since there is another thread with a reformat and install over windows I feel obligated to ask. Are you aware that you should format the "end" of the disc for Linux? Ie: defrag Windows and then partition the remaining space for Linux. If you put Linux up front you'll lose windows (unless you are looking to reinstall anyway)

[bob]

Yes, please back up your data any time you're doing partitioning and or installations. And u-noneinc-s is absolutely correct - Windows wants (and needs) to be the first OS on the drive. After defragging, snip off the back end for FC, but it's okay to allow grub to install on the master boot record. That way you'll be able to dual-boot.

[Boris Cat]

Well thats just answered a few questions I've just been looking for in the forum.

Yeah I figured out I need to defrag the drive before starting the linux install, was wondering if the installer re-partioned the HDD without interfering with the windows files and data.

As for data backup, I learned my lesson when a HDD failed unexpectedly, took me ages to get the data off the disk and into an old PC before the ultimate windoze command was issued:-
Format C:

still gotta download the other discs yet and burn them before any fiddling with the windows installation begins

Boris