martin@iris.ucdavis.edu (Bruce K. Martin Jr.) (08/19/87)
I have just recieved the Minix 1.1 distribution from Prentice Hall and am
trying to install it on an IBM PC/XT with a stock 10Mb hard disk.
Minix seems to boot and run fine from the floppies. However, when I attempt
to use the fixed disk, things go haywire.
What I have done is this: I partitioned the disk into two sections, the
first for ms-dos (155 cylinders), and the second for minix (150 cylinders).
I ran diskfix.asm so that the minix partition was of type non-DOS. At
this point I successfully restored DOS. I then booted minix and executed
mkfs /dev/hd2 5100
(150 cylinders * 34 Kb/cylinder == 5100). At this point mkfs would usually
fail, scribbling garbage all over the screen (no visable error messages) and
hanging the machine. Twice I was able to successfully complete the mkfs
(with the exact same procedure), but when I went to copy files off of the
floppies onto the new file system, the machine crashed with the same symptoms.
I am at a complete loss as to what course of action to take. Any suggestions?
(BTW, I have tried this on two identical PC's with the same results. I also
tried recopying my original distribution floppies, all to no avail).
I'd appreciate any help!
...bruce
Bruce K. Martin Jr. U.C. Davis -- Dept. of Computer Science
martin@iris.ucdavis.edu --or-- {ucbvax || lll-crg}!ucdavis!iris!martinast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (08/20/87)
In article <692@ucdavis.UUCP> martin@iris.ucdavis.edu (Bruce K. Martin Jr.) writes: > >I have just recieved the Minix 1.1 distribution from Prentice Hall and am >trying to install it on an IBM PC/XT with a stock 10Mb hard disk. >Minix seems to boot and run fine from the floppies. However, when I attempt >to use the fixed disk, things go haywire. Frequently this sort of problem is caused by disk controllers that are nonstandard in some sense. As a general rule, before trying to mkfs a file system, it is a good idea to type dd if=/dev/hd0 of=/dev/null count=1000 and see what happens. If that fails, the controller and the driver don't like each other. The xt_wini.c and at_wini.c drivers I posted a couple of weeks ago are MUCH more robust than the 1.1 drivers. I would suggest fishing them out of the archive and trying them. (Hard disk problems are the most common difficulty with MINIX. I have gotten umpteen messages, paper mail letters, and phone calls about this, which is why I am posting this reply rather than replying by e-mail as I normally do). Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)