[Wolves] Probs wih install

[James Turner]

On Saturday 22 Jan 2005 23:53, Andy Wootton wrote:
> Ron Wellsted wrote:
> >On Sat, 2005-01-22 at 22:20 +0000, Wayne Morris wrote:
> >>...
> >>
> >>Is this most likely to be a monitor issue or a hard drive issue?
> >
> >Almost certainly the hard drive.  Try deleting the ext3 partition and
> >let FC do it's stuff.
>
> I've had installs go wrong at this point due to graphics/display issues
> too. They will use some safe generic driver all through the install then
> try to use the 'perceived perfect' driver at full X startup but it turns
> out to be the wrong one. Try booting to the command line then find the X
> set-up tool from there. Didn't a few people report graphics problems at
> FC3 on the list?

There is an outside chance that there could be related to the monitor or 
graphics driver.

The monitor will almost certainly support VESA DDC (Video Electronics 
Standards Association Data Display Channel), which is a method by which the 
computer can query the monitor to determine its resolution/refresh 
capabilities. This can be disabled and a widely supported low resolution mode 
(640x480 at 60Hz) forced by typing the following at the boot prompt (applies 
to all Fedora and newish Red Hat versions):

linux noprobe noddc lowres

Alternatively you can completely disable the X-based user interface during 
installation by typing

linux text

Once (if) the install completes, you could then modify the /etc/X11/xorg.conf 
file (/etc/X11/XFree86.conf in older versions) to make any settings 
permanent, should they prove to be necessary. If you need help with this it's 
probably best to try the above and let us know what happens with different 
settings so we can give specific advice.

Once you have X working to at least a basic level you can type "setup" at a 
shell prompt and choose "X Configuration" from the menu to use the graphical 
configuration tool (or choose "System Settings", "Display" from the GNOME or 
KDE menus).

I would agree with Ron as regards the hard disc - I suggest wiping the 
partitions created with Parition Magic (or the entire partition table, if the 
disc doesn't have any other data on it that is to be kept) and letting the 
installer create them itself.

If there are physical problems such as bad sectors on the hard disc you will 
generally see messages a bit like this on the system console (do a text-based 
install to ensure they are visible):

hda: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 {Drive Ready Seek Complete Error}
hda: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 {DriveStatusError}

If the disc was originally partitioned on another machine there may be 
problems due to differences in the way address translation such as LBA is 
implemented between the different BIOS - completely wipe the partition table 
and start again using the destination machine to be sure.

You may also see a similar error corresponding to the CD-ROM drive (The first 
part indicates the position on the IDE bus: hda=primary master, hdb=primary 
slave, etc), which might indicate a problem with that. The Fedora installer 
sometimes does things like you describe if the CD-ROM drive or one of the CDs 
is faulty.

Regards,

James