From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 3 15:37:03 2005 Return-Path: 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 8A28816A4CE for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:37:03 +0000 (GMT) Received: from zix.lifethc.org (roc-zixvpm-2.lifethc.org [67.51.180.235]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B154E43D55 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:37:02 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from john.dutcher@excellus.com) Received: from roc-zixvpm-2.lifethc.org (ZixVPM [127.0.0.1]) by Outbound.lifethc.org (Proprietary) with ESMTP id 87D8B36C720 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 10:29:27 -0500 (EST) Received: from smtp1ra.flbcbs.com (unknown [192.104.75.20]) by zix.lifethc.org (Proprietary) with ESMTP id 8A8C436C667 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 10:29:23 -0500 (EST) To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 5.0.12 February 13, 2003 Message-ID: From: John.Dutcher@excellus.com Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 10:36:56 -0500 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on SMTP1/BlueCross/FLH(Release 6.5.3|September 14, 2004) at 02/03/2005 10:36:57 AM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Subject: Disk access problem with 5.3 install from CD X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:37:03 -0000 I have noted success stories from some who have installed FreeBSD on Compaq Laptops similar to mine: Compaq Armada 7400, 6.2 gig drive, 128 mb RAM. I purchased the 5.3 (2) CD, (1) DVD set and have tried multiple times to use CD 1 to install. All attempts fail after providing these message: 1) Early in the process: "ad0: Failure Read_DMA timed out" (this msg is repeated 3-4 times) I select a standard install, giving the entire drive to FreeBSD No MBR needed...don't want to accomodate other OS's 2) Soon I get; "Writing partition information to drive ad0" followed by: "Error Unable to write data to disk ad0" and then: "Couldn't make filesystem properly, aborting" Responding to some other user sites, I tried doing a boot from my Win backup rescue boot disk and ran FDISK to apply a single DOS partition as I had read that this might help.....didn't seem to. Results as before. Any ideas available as to what I might try next ??