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Date:      Sun, 09 Mar 1997 00:23:14 -0500
From:      Scott Nichol <snichol@netreach.net>
To:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Installation hangs
Message-ID:  <33224913.4BDA@netreach.net>

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I am trying to install FreeBSD 2.1.6 from CD-ROM.  The target system is
a UMC based 486 PCI motherboard, 16M RAM, NE2000 NIC, Tseng SVGA,
Adaptec 1542C SCSI controller, Toshiba 3401 SCSI CD-ROM and single
Conner hard drive.  I'll note here that the Adaptec controller is *very*
old; the BIOS is 1.01 and the board does *not* support Fast SCSI.

The kernel loads successfully for both CD-ROM and floppy install; all
hardware appears to be detected correctly.  I choose the Novice install,
Entire disk (I've tried both "true partition geometry" and not),
BootMgr, Auto defaults and CD-ROM.  After confirming that I wish to
proceed, the install program says "Writing partition information to
drive sd0".  At this point, my drive activity LED lights and stays on. 
Soon thereafter, I get the message "sysinstall: write: Input/output
error"
"Panic: going nowhere without my init"

The install program was able to write to the SCSI drive well enough to
wipe out my original DOS partitioning (at my request).  I have done a
low-level format on the drive and checked for bad blocks, too.   The
disk and controller had been running on an NT system for about three
years with no problems I know of.

Can anyone offer any suggestions?  Thanks.
-- 
Scott Nichol



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