by I am trying to install RH 5.2 on a notebook - 486DX-33 8MB RAM 122MB
ST9145AG HD.
When booted off the floppy (no CDROM) initially the drive is reported
correctly:
hda: ST9145AG w/64kb cache, CHS 980/15/17
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7, irq14
Then comes the partition check and it's downhill al the way.
It gives 4 blocks of:
hda: Status Error: Status=0x01 {Error}
hda: Status Error: Status=0x04 {DriveStatusError}
hda: Drive not ready for command
followed by:
ide0: reset: Success
hda1 hda2 <hda5 hda6 >
This last after booting a Win98 (from a new machine) Partition Magic
Rescue disk and setting:
Primary Partition 1 5MB ext2 - intended to be /root
Extended partition 2
Logical 100MB ext2 - intended as /
Logical 16MB Linux Swap
Originally I had a single partition under Win95a but the output from
install gave the same error messages.
From the Linux documentation the 4 blocks are followed by a
recalibrate - giving the reset: success.
Laptops are specifically not supported by RedHat so there is no help
to be had there.
I have used Seagates software to confirm that the drive is a ST9145AG
it is 145 unformatted : From Seagate
ST-9145AG
UNFORMATTED CAPACITY (MB) ________________145
FORMATTED CAPACITY (xx SECTORS) (MB) _____127.9
ACTUATOR TYPE ____________________________VOICE COIL
TRACKS (USER) _PHYSICAL/LOGICAL___________5852/14700
CYLINDERS __PHYSICAL/LOGICAL______________1463/980
HEADS ______PHYSICAL/LOGICAL______________4/15
DISCS (2.5 in)____________________________2
MEDIA TYPE _______________________________THIN FILM
RECORDING METHOD _________________________ZBR RLL (2,7)
TRANSFER RATE INTERNAL (mbits/sec)________up to 16
SPINDLE SPEED (RPM) ______________________3,449
AVERAGE LATENCY (mSEC) ___________________8.69
BUFFER ___________________________________32/64 KByte SeaCache
Multisegmented cache
INTERFACE ________________________________AT BUS
SECTORS PER DRIVE ________________________249,900
TPI (TRACKS PER INCH) ____________________2,650
Possible translation: 980 cyl, 15 heads, 17 sectors = 127,948,800
The BIOS is set for User type 47 :C/H/S 980/15/17
The computer, a Cardstar, is unusual in having an ISA slot.
The intended use is as a proxy server using IP masqerade.
Sadly I have had no problem with any MS OS and it is now happily
running our other 3 computers on a 10Base2 (ISA EN2000 clone NIC) LAN
with a TDK PCMCIA modem and Wingate 3.0 under Win95a.
I don't have the knowledge to know if this is an irq13 problem with
the initial BIOS call or some irq14 problem with the drive itself.
Any suggestions would be most welcome.