HDD install hangs at 1-2 percent of file copying

[PuTzHeAd]

I have read dozens of posts which have definately helped me get further along. My situation is this:

I have an AcerNote Light Laptop with no CDROM drive. I have copied the Knoppix Dir to a FAT32 Partition, booted from FDD and started knx-hdinstall. The install starts, I select the partitions for Swap, etc.

The file copy process starts, then stops after about 2 mins only at 2 percent each time.

The laptop only has 16MB RAM. That's the only thing I can think of. I am going to up it to 40MB (unfortunately max amount).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-PuTzHeAd-

[Dave_Bechtel]

--Make sure you have an active swap partition ' swapon -s '; if not, ' mkswap /dev/hdZ99 ' (replace z99 with whatever drive+partition has the type 82) and then ' swapon /dev/hdZ99 '

--When installing and it stops:
o Boot into non-GUI mode ' knoppix 2 '

o On another virtual console such as alt-F2, start ' nice top -d 10 ' to monitor the install process.

o Switch back to alt-F1 and start knx-hdinstall. If/when it stops, switch back to alt-F2 and see if the screen is still updating every 10 seconds. If it is... Hit Alt-Sysrq-S to "emergency Sync" the pending I/O to all HDs. Hopefully the install will resume copying (this worked on my laptop with Reiserfs.) You may have to do this multiple times, so keep an eye on the install.

--Post back, especially if this works.


I have read dozens of posts which have definately helped me get further along. My situation is this:

I have an AcerNote Light Laptop with no CDROM drive. I have copied the Knoppix Dir to a FAT32 Partition, booted from FDD and started knx-hdinstall. The install starts, I select the partitions for Swap, etc.

The file copy process starts, then stops after about 2 mins only at 2 percent each time.

The laptop only has 16MB RAM. That's the only thing I can think of. I am going to up it to 40MB (unfortunately max amount).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-PuTzHeAd-

[PuTzHeAd]

I have done exactly as suggested to no avail. The Alt-Sysrq-S did not help - it seemed the HDD light flashed for a second then that was it. I tried again and again - no luck.

The system doesn't freeze thought it just stops copying files.

Bizarre...

[Dave_Bechtel]

--Post results of ' sudo hdparm /dev/hda '.


I have done exactly as suggested to no avail. The Alt-Sysrq-S did not help - it seemed the HDD light flashed for a second then that was it. I tried again and again - no luck.

The system doesn't freeze thought it just stops copying files.

Bizarre...

[PuTzHeAd]

sudo hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
multcount =16 (on)
I/O support = 0 (default 16-bit)
unmaskirq = 0 (off)
using_dma = 0(off)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
nowerr = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 789/255/63, sectors = 12685680, start = 0
busstate = 1 (on)

[Stephen]

I see where Dave is going here before you start the install sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/hda to turn on DMA access for your drive or boot with the cheat code dma and check to make sure it is on before you start to install. If you use the sudo method you may want a -c1 or -c3 option also to turn on 32 bit support without (c1) and with sync (c3).

This will speed up the copying process the drive I have in my computer here for example - without dma will transfer about 4mb/sec with dma about 35mb/sec (64mb test).

To test the speed of the drive sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda do it before and after you set the dma to see the difference to find out information about the drive sudo hdparm -i /dev/hda.

[MorskNorsk]

If the hdparm trick doesn't help it may not be a bad idea to check for disk errors.

[PuTzHeAd]

It gets further (3 percent) now, but still stops copying files??

I tried the sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda at bootup:

20.58MB/sec

after running sudo hdparm -d1 -c1 -c3 /dev/hda:

24.11MB/sec

how would I check for errors?

[Dave_Bechtel]

--What kind of filesystem are you installing to (ext2, reiserfs?)


It gets further (3 percent) now, but still stops copying files??

I tried the sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda at bootup:

20.58MB/sec

after running sudo hdparm -d1 -c1 -c3 /dev/hda:

24.11MB/sec

how would I check for errors?

[MorskNorsk]

Depends on the type of partition (thanks Dave) but in general you can use the fsck command (man fsck). Also check the CD for errors to make sure there isn't a bad spot on your install media. You can do this by doing
knoppix testcdwhen you boot with the CD.

[PuTzHeAd]

I've tried 3 different filesystems. I started with ext2, then tried ext3, then tried xfs. Same thing each time.

Ran the testcd command - passed OK.

Also ran fsck on the ext2 partition - came up clean.

???

[Dave_Bechtel]

--Okay, ExtremeSolution(TM) time.

' cp /usr/local/bin/knx-hdinstall /ramdisk '

--For a text editor, I recommend ' jstar ' for it's Wordstar-compatible key combos. For a GUI editor you can try ' sudo nedit /ramdisk/knx-hdinstall '.

--Edit /ramdisk/knx-hdinstall, comment out ('#' as first char) the following lines:

# 832-871:


sleep 2
dd if=/dev/zero of=$FSCHOICE bs=1k count=16 >/dev/null 2>&1
sync
case $FSTYPE in
xfs)
mkfs.$FSTYPE -f $FSCHOICE 2> $TMP
x=$?
;;
reiserfs)
echo y | mkfs.$FSTYPE $FSCHOICE 2> $TMP
x=$?
;;
*)
mkfs.$FSTYPE $FSCHOICE 2> $TMP
x=$?
case $FSTYPE in *ext*) tune2fs -O ^dir_index $FSCHOICE;; esac
;;
esac
if [ $x != 0 ] ; then
case "$ORIG_LANGUAGE" in
de|at|ch)
M1="Beim Anlegen des Filesystems ist ein Fehler aufgetreten. Hier die Meldungen von mkfs:"
;;
es)
M1="Ocurrió un error mientras se creaba el sistema de ficheros. Algunos mensajes de mkfs:"
;;
fr)
M1="Une erreur est intervenue pendant la création du système de fichiers. Quelques messages de mkswap:"
;;
se)
M1="Fel under formateringen. Meddelande från mkfs:"
;;
*)
M1="An error occurred while creating the filesystem. Some messages from mkfs:"
;;
esac
$DIA --backtitle "$BT" --title "$T1" --msgbox "$M1 `tail -8 $TMP`" 15 60
rm -f $TMP
exit 0
fi


# 928 and 929:


(cd /KNOPPIX ; cp -a * $TR ; sync) &
progressbar $!


--Save and exit (Ctrl-KX in jstar.) For the purposes of this example I am using /dev/hda5 and /mnt/hda5 as your target filesystem (try reiserfs, whaddaya got to lose) :
' mkdir /mnt/hda5 '
' mkreiserfs /dev/hda5 '
' mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5 '

--Now, invoke ' mc ' and type ' cd /KNOPPIX '[[enter]] in pane 1. Hit Tab and ' cd /mnt/hda5 ' in pane 2. Tab again, hit Insert key and hold it down to select all the files and directories in pane 1. Hit F5 and copy to pane 2. (This is basically replacing the script's copy function.)

--Hit F10 to exit MC when the copying is done (hopefully it works! If not you're SOL.) Then ' cd /ramdisk; ./knx-hdinstall ' and go thru the usual steps, but choose Reiserfs this time. The script should do everything except format the filesystem and copy the files (hopefully. Make sure you put the dot-slash before knx-hdinstall so it runs from the current dir instead of usr-local-bin.) If it stops copying, try the Alt-Sysrq-S (worked for me on Reiserfs) just for grinz.


I've tried 3 different filesystems. I started with ext2, then tried ext3, then tried xfs. Same thing each time.

Ran the testcd command - passed OK.

Also ran fsck on the ext2 partition - came up clean.

???