[comp.unix.aux] System hangs during A/UX CDROM install

rolfe@w3vh.UUCP (Rolfe Tessem) (06/08/91)

I've been pulling my hair out for two days trying to install A/UX 2.01
from CDROM (a CD Technologies Portadrive) to a Mac II (w/PMMU) and a new
Maxtor 340 meg external drive from Alliance Peripheral.

The drive was formatted and partitioned with Silverlining 5.28 using the
defaults for handshaking and choosing a "minimum Mac OS" setup.

In every instance, the install proceeds until after the drive-type
selection is made (we chose "generic", but tried several alternatives as
well) and the script announces: "Creating A/UX filesystem."  On most of
our attempts, the drive activity light lit for about 10 seconds, went out,
and then the system was hung, requiring a poweroff.

Occasionally, we progressed beyond that point, but not by much.  On two
occasions we got something like "disk read error, error recovered (hex number)
...and some other physical and logical sector information" and THEN the
system hung.  On one try, we got the error messages, but it progressed to
"Checking partition sizes...done" and "Copying critical files... and THEN
hung.

Full R/W diagnostics with Silverlining indicate no problems with the drive,
and it works perfectly under Mac OS. I've disconnected everything else on
the SCSI chain other than the external drive and the CDROM, to no avail (I
also have a 100 meg Rodime internal on the machine, as well as an Apple 
Ethernet card and Radius 2-page mono display with 1-bit card.)

Before either I or the machine get thrown out the window, does anyone have
any clue as to what is going on here?  I've spoken to Steve Carter at
A/UX Support who was helpful, but just as stumped as I am.


-- 
Rolfe Tessem        | Lucky Duck Productions
rolfe@w3vh.UUCP	    | 17 Saint Luke's Place
{uunet}!w3vh!rolfe  | New York, NY 10014
(413) 528-5966	    | (212) 463-0029

alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) (06/09/91)

In article <117@w3vh.UUCP> rolfe@w3vh.UUCP (Rolfe Tessem) writes:
>I've been pulling my hair out for two days trying to install A/UX 2.01
>from CDROM (a CD Technologies Portadrive) to a Mac II (w/PMMU) and a new
>Maxtor 340 meg external drive from Alliance Peripheral.
>
>The drive was formatted and partitioned with Silverlining 5.28 using the
>defaults for handshaking and choosing a "minimum Mac OS" setup.

I'm afraid the drive isn't the problem. If memory serves, your CD-ROM is
based on an NEC mechanism. This unit is not compatible with A/UX. In fact,
it's not a particularly good CD-ROM at all. If I'm right that it's an NEC
and you decide to replace it, get a Toshiba. They're very good.

---
Alexis Rosen
Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix, NY
alexis@panix.com
{cmcl2,apple}!panix!alexis