From owner-freebsd-questions  Sun Mar  9 20:05:42 1997
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Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:04:00 +1100 (EST)
From: Richard Lyon <rlyon@oznet07.ozemail.com.au>
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To: Scott Nichol <snichol@netreach.net>
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Subject: Re: Installation hangs
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On Sun, 9 Mar 1997, Scott Nichol wrote:

> I'll note here that the Adaptec controller is *very*
> old; the BIOS is 1.01 and the board does *not* support Fast SCSI.
>

FBSD works ok with 1542 controllers and old bios.
 
> 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"

Check the drive geometry. You can see this during bootup. There is a 
chance that the Adaptec jumpers may not be setup correctly. Generally the 
default settings are OK for older machines.

Regards Richard ....