Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, David Moberg wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
>
> > Now fdisk tells me
> > "FATAL ERROR:  Bad signature on partition table.  Press any key to
> > exit cfdisk."
>
> Try cfdisk -z to ignore the existing partition table.

I am having problems even trying to boot linux, without cfdisk.

At first I got various error messages during boot about hda not having an 
IRQ and hdb being non-IDE, kept rebooting, sometimes with ignore=hda 
(which would not let me boot past the messages: hda:  status error
hda:  drive not ready for command).  One time I was able to type cfdisk -z 
/dev/hda and was told the above again.   Sometimes I also got DriveReady 
DeviceFault SeekCOmplete DataRequest CorrectedError Index, and somethinga 
about reset.

Trying to boot from zimage and loadlin on floppy disk to root=/dev/hdb2:

hda:  IRQ probe failed (0)
no mention of hdb, found the CD-ROM drive on hdc.
Partition check:
 hda: hda: status error:  status=0x73 { DriveReady.....
ide0:  reset time-out, status=0xfe
hda:  status timeouts:..
hda:  drive not ready for command
unable to read partition able
VFS:  Cannot open root device 03:43
Kernel panic..

Loadlin does not seem to be finding hdb at all (where the files are for 
root).

If I try booting the 2-floppy BL2 hda irq probe failed and no hdb, and 
hda: status error and statust timeout and reset timed-out and drive not 
ready for command and finally it boots but cfdisk -z /dev/hda tells me
hda status error { DriveReady DeviceFault...
hda:  drive not ready for command.....  and eventually cfdisk gives up.

cfdisk /dev/hdb - FATAL ERROR:  Cannot open disk drive, Press any key to 
exit cfdisk. (This is the linux drive and it was working not too long ago 
apart from the various timeout messages that appeared at random).

plain cfdisk /dev/hda now tells me hda:  status error (instead of the 
fatal error about the bad signature on partition table)


Booting 2-floppy BL2, with IDE controllers disabled and BIOS set to no 
hard drives:

RAM disk driver initialized:
hda: C/H/S=0/0/0 from BIOS ignored
hda:  no response
hda:  non-IDE drive
hda:  drive not ready for command  etc.
It finally boots and gives me the same error messages with cfdisk.
So linux seems to be finding the first hard drive despite BIOS being told 
it is not there.  And not finding it when BIOS is told it IS there.

Two people have suggested that I get the manufacturer's low-level format 
program for the hda drive (Seagate) which contains the partition table 
info for it.  But now hdb is not even found.

Perhaps the controller has gone bad?  I could try a 40MB drive in here as 
a test, or put these drives in another computer.


> > Do I recycle this drive now?  Or try a low-level format?
>
> It's already low-level formatted, if dd didn't produce any error
> messages. No need to recycle it just yet.
>
> > Theoretical question:
> >
> > Is there a way to just overwrite the partition table, which Running
> > Linux says is in the first 1024 bytes?  They explain that
> > dd if=/dev/hda of=/tmp/stuff bs=1k count=1
> > saves the first 1024 bytes of data to a file.
>
> Yeah, if=/dev/zero and of=/dev/hda should overwrite it if that is true.

This appears to have overwritten 1.2G, not just the 512bytes containing 
MBR and partition table.

> David
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org