HDD install hangs at 1-2 percent of file copying

[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.

???