Date: Sat, 27 Jan 1996 13:44:48 -0500 (EST) From: John Brann <jbrann@panix.com> To: jeff@stat.uconn.edu (Jeffrey M. Metcalf) Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Problems with DOS partition install Message-ID: <199601271844.NAA05735@jbrann.dialup.access.net> In-Reply-To: <9601271714.AA11738@ruddles.stat.uconn.edu> from "Jeffrey M. Metcalf" at Jan 27, 96 12:14:32 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Jeffrey M. Metcalf wrote... > > > Hello, > > The instructions in the installation manual for an installation from a DOS > partition seem to be very incomplete. When I prepare for a minimal > installation from a DOS partition by copying > > e:\dists\bin ------> c:\freebsd\bin > e:\floppies ------> c:\freebsd\floppies > > (all copying is checked and is complete) > > I get a > > Write Failure on transfer message when the installation program is > attempting to write to the / directory. > > The following is an excerpt from the debugging mode's output: > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Pressing Alt-F2 and going into Debugging mode I see the following > messages. > > ... stuff about copying -> /stand (seems OK) then > DEBUG: Dummy [default] close called for wd0s1 with fd 6 > DEBUG: Request for bin/bin.tgz from DOS > DEBUG: Request for bin/bin.aa from DOS > . > bin > bin/cat > > gunzip: stdin: invalid compressed data--format violated > DEBUG: Dummy [default] close called for wd0s1 with fd of 7. > DEBUG: Switching back to VTY1 > /stand/cpio: premature end of file > DEBUG: Switching back to VTY1 > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > It would be helpful if someone could test the installation from a DOS > partition and let me know what's going on. > > Thanks for the help. > > J. Metcalf > Hmm, weird. I've done this lots of times (well, half a dozen, anyway) without any particular problems. Your debugging messages suggest one of two things to me - 1. the files are corrupted (unlikely, unless they've been ftp'd in ASCII at some point) 2. the DOS partition isn't being found for some reason. I've always used this in simple environments (no more than 2 partitions, first for FAT, second for FreeBSD). According to your messages it looks like the install believes that the FAT partition is 'wd0s1'. You could make sure of this in the fdisk / disklabel windows during installation. As a knee-jerk reaction I always tell disklabel to mount the FAT partition on '/dos'. I don't think this makes a difference, but your experience is strange. Beyond my rather shallow observations, I think you're going to need to give the real gurus a lot more information on your machine (maker, IDE/EIDE controller), the procedure you went through to copy over the distributions, the exact geometry you divided the disk into, whether you used FIPS or FDISK, and the exact sequence of steps you took during the installation. Good luck, John -- Difficult conversations with great figures of history: 3. Winston Churchill: "Excuse me, this is the no-smoking section."
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199601271844.NAA05735>