stever@tree.UUCP (Steve Rudek) (04/09/89)
About 2 months ago a double panic made the root file system (/dev/dsk/0s0) unbootable. In previous instances of file system corruption I'd escaped similar problems by running Microport's installit program specifying the "upgrade" path rather than a new installation (which would mkfs all the file systems and wipe out important stuff on /dev/dsk/0s2, etc). In this case, though, the disk remained unbootable -- clearly the problem was at a lower level. Looking at the installit script revealed that when doing a new installation the script referenced a "list" file to determine which files to copy across while a shorter "list.ug" file was used when following the upgrade path. So I hatched the idea of hacking a backup copy of the boot floppy disk to "cp list list.ug" before doing an 'upgrade'. Voila! The root file system once again became bootable and I figured that was the end of THAT. It wasn't -- not quite. There was one side effect to my hack that I can't figure out. Everytime a ps is run, the system INSISTS on accessing the floppy drive. It doesn't DO anything on the drive but it insists on having a floppy in there and turning on that cute little red light before it will agree to do anything else. It's not the worst problem in the world -- heck, I've managed to put up with it for nearly 2 months now. But it is irritating and I would like to get to the bottom of it. I figure that there must be a modified file or something somewhere. Or perhaps there's something different about the kernel? I don't know. Does anyone?
nvk@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Norman Kohn) (04/10/89)
In article <264@tree.UUCP> stever@tree.UUCP (Steve Rudek) writes: >About 2 months ago a double panic made the root file system (/dev/dsk/0s0) >unbootable... >I hatched the idea of hacking a backup copy of the boot floppy disk to >"cp list list.ug" before doing an 'upgrade'. Voila! The root file system >once again became bootable and I figured that was the end of THAT. Look at the shell script again. You'll note that the kernel is patched. As I recall, it's called something like hdrt.patch. I bet you're running the floppy kernel without patch, and it's dutifully going to the floppy from which it was born... -- Norman Kohn | ...ddsw1!nvk!norman Chicago, Il. | days/ans svc: (312) 650-6840 | eves: (312) 373-0564
pcg@aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi) (04/10/89)
In article <264@tree.UUCP> stever@tree.UUCP (Steve Rudek) writes:
[ describes how he restored the root filesystem from the floppy
in some sneaky way (without really knowing what's going on...)
and then every time he runs ps the floppy must be there ]
I don't know. Does anyone?
Very bizarre. try to see if it does the same when saying
ps -s /dev/null
If it no longer tries to read the floppy, then you know why
I am surmising that /dev/swap is linked to /dev/dsk/fd. It may
also be the case that your swapdev is still on the ramdisk...
--
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.ukdenis@clsib21.UUCP (denis filipetti) (04/11/89)
Try looking in /etc/checklist, perhaps the floppy device is in there ? Denis