Re: Power failure during Slack9 setup

From: David (thunderbolt01_at_netscape.net)
Date: 08/28/03


Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 16:59:07 GMT

John Schulz wrote:
> The title 'bout says it.
>
> Slackware 9.0 setup was proceeding from my bootable CD just fine.
> My NIC was detected, partitions were mounted, /etc/fstab configured;
> you name it.
>
> Then the power dropped for just long enough to crash the setup which
> had only been running 20 seconds, tops. It had only installed the
> first 3 or 4 packages in the 'a' series. I rebooted without the CD to
> see what remained of my Slackware 8.0 (2.2.19? kernel) install and
> hoping the "not cleanly unmounted. Check forced" message would appear
> and clean up any problems created by kicking the chair out from under
> the disk.
>
> There were no boot errors and I could still login but glibc was now
> missing so everything dependent on that failed. I decided I'd luckily
> gotten away cleanly and waited until all risk of power failure had
> passed to begin the install anew.
>
> During this second install the black console screen started
> scrolling errors like:
> [Pkg name? Not sure] ext2_bad_block: free blocks [and something] do
> not match
>
> Sometimes it would only be 2 or 3 such messages other times it would
> be 4 pages.
>
> I now cannot login. ANY string of text causes an error from crypt
> complaining about too short a login. CTRL-ALT-DEL at the login causes
> a "You do not exist. Go away." error.
>
> I began the install again, this time choosing to do the "slow
> format, checks for bad blocks" on both partitions. No complaints
> about the drives but I got the same error messages again.
>
> Luckily, I can still use the bootable CD to login as root and mount
> the 3 ext2 partitions. Even more luckily, I'm not worried about any
> data on the 3 partitions, so a complete format can be done if need be.
>
> So, how do I:
> 1)Fix any damage on the drives
> OR
> 2)Re-format, or otherwise prepare, the drives to accept the
> installation?

Boot from the bootable CD and wipe the drive.

!!!! WARNING !!!!
!!!! THIS WILL DELETE ALL PARTITIONS !!!!
!!!! IT WILL WIPE THE DRIVE AND REMOVE ALL DATA !!!!

!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!!!

     cat /dev/zero >/dev/hdX

Where hdX would be the correct drive or partition ie.(hda, hda4)
This will take several minutes depending on the size of the
drive. Then try the install again being sure to format the
partitions.

-- 
Confucius:  He who play in root, eventually kill tree.
Registered with The Linux Counter.  http://counter.li.org/
Slackware 9.0 Kernel 2.4.22 i686 (GCC) 3.3
Uptime: 2 days, 17:30, 1 user, load average: 1.22, 1.35, 1.35


Relevant Pages

  • Re: Digital switch over query
    ... > specific hardware setup. ... Athlon XP2500+ cpu by which time, the original Debian install was ... Have you been able to see speeds nearer to 10MB/s rather ... Not with 320GB and larger drives. ...
    (uk.tech.digital-tv)
  • Re: Need Serius help
    ... from CD/DVD (i have two drives and it happens in both) and even ... So i got tired and decided to just clean everything and setup xp again ... right after that it starts formatting partition c: to install xp everything ... to be that you are having repeated trouble with file corruption and it's ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
  • Re: Replace SCSI Drive
    ... from there you can manipulate other hard drives attached to the machine. ... It should 'just work' but watch out that you keep disk devices ... vi-a) Write a BSD partition table into the slice, then set up your required FreeBSD partitions: ... items under the 'Custom Install' to achieve the desired result. ...
    (freebsd-questions)
  • Re: (2nd) HDD Format & Setup Suggestions Please
    ... Backup - use the built in Windows Backup utility. ... 'normal' setup (sometimes getting rid of Linux partitions, ... Beware of some crappy apps that install databases in the ... >> would have considered SATA disc drives on a low cost SATA RAID controller ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Clean install Win2K
    ... CD-Rom; change to the \bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and execute ... to boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom. ... important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup to prevent ... partitions and the unpartitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.general)