From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 26 18:26:29 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33B0D16A41F for ; Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:26:29 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: from opusnet.com (mail.opusnet.com [209.210.200.6]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A072743D48 for ; Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:26:28 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: from localhost.localhost [70.98.246.232] by opusnet.com with ESMTP (SMTPD32-8.05) id AECF485E00C8; Fri, 26 Aug 2005 11:26:23 -0700 Received: from localhost.localhost (localhost.localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localhost (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id j7QIR3ir001847; Fri, 26 Aug 2005 11:27:03 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localhost (8.13.3/8.13.3/Submit) id j7QIQvPI001846; Fri, 26 Aug 2005 11:26:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) To: "Mattia Popolla" References: <000b01c5aa47$23c65e90$d88cd351@CPQ18836310993> From: garys@opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 11:26:57 -0700 In-Reply-To: <000b01c5aa47$23c65e90$d88cd351@CPQ18836310993> (Mattia Popolla's message of "Fri, 26 Aug 2005 16:04:41 +0200") Message-ID: <2oll2owo3y.l2o@mail.opusnet.com> User-Agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) XEmacs/21.4.17 (Jumbo Shrimp, berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Unable to write to disk during installation X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:26:29 -0000 "Mattia Popolla" writes: > and sorry for my bad english! I noticed nothing unusual about it, for e-mail. > I'm trying to install FreeBSD/i386 5.3-RELEASE > FROM A DOS PARTITION. Fine English, but I don't understand. I'm sorry if there is some standard install method like this I'm unaware of. > I have two HD units, with no partitions: > Primary master - C: - ad0 (the "primary partition") > Secondary master - D: - ad2 > > I copied the distribution in C:/FREEBSD. Yeah, but you copied to it where? How did you copy it? What commands to computer? > Booting FreeBSD from floppies I get some error messages, > like these: > > ad2: FAILURE - READ_DMA status=51 error4: aborted LBA 1 > ad2: FAILURE - READ_DMA status=51 error4: aborted LBA 1 > ad2: FAILURE - READ_DMA status=51 error4: aborted LBA 2 > ad2: FAILURE - READ_DMA status=51 error4: aborted LBA 1 > ... Does "Booting FreeBSD" mean "booting FreeBSD "kern.flp" floppy, or what? When do you get those messages? You usually should also report messages seen just before and just after your problem messages. > Unit ad2 is an old 1624 MB Western Digital HD > (model WDC AC31600H, PIO MODE 4, no ULTRA DMA) > but IT IS NOT FAILING, all the clusters are OK, > and it works perfectly with MS DOS/Windows. > I've also freshly formatted it using the MS-DOS FORMAT command. The latter was a waste of time, except maybe as a kind of test. The results of the format was just some change of data on the disk partition, which the FreeBSD install doesn't care about. > Can this be a driver problem? > The other HD (unit ad0) seems to work, > but I can't make partitions in it! > What can I do? Please help me!!! It does look like a driver problem, to this amateur -- no driver expert. It seems to have detected a PIO device as a DMA device. I'd check my BIOS setup to see if I can force PIO instead of DMA. I'd try removing the slave device, if any. If desparate, try swaping primary-secondary. At last resort, maybe a BIOS update. That's all I can think of, other than the standard support advice of trying to install a more recent (or even older) OS version.