Bug#278753: filesystem corrupts during package install
I have been trying to figure out exactly when/where the filesystem gets messed
up during the install. Unfortunately I have exceeded my technical abilities...
I just did an expert install where I turned off insertion all modules except as
needed -- for example, for detection of the CD I turned on only the triflex,
isofs, ide-detect, ide-disk & ide-cd. For network I turn on only tlan. The
installer complained that I still needed ide-scsi, ide-mod, ide-probe-mod,
ide-generic, and ide-floppy, and the Detect Hardware section failed on its
attempt to insert all the remaining modules. Afterward the installation seemed
to proceed mostly normally, then several core packages failed.
Next I did an expert install where I only deselected usb, ide-floppy and
aic7xxx. The core packages went along great until exim package configuration
crashed with a "29750 segmentation fault" at "line 371" -- sorry my notes are
not clear here. I booted Knoppix and fsck confirmed the filesystem was trashed.
Next I started an installation using only the defaults (non expert, pressed
Return through most prompts) and set up the manual partitioning as usual (to
preserve the COMPAQ partition) then waited until the partitioner finished -- as
soon as I saw it start the Debian base package installation I pressed
control-alt-delete and switched to Knoppix. I did a fsck on the partition and
it was OK -- except there were a few DMA timeouts while I ran fsck from the
console and Knoppix was trying to finish loading the GUI.
I do not know PC hardware at all -- this drive that I'm trying to install the
root partition onto is on the same IDE cable as the CD-ROM drive. Could that be
a problem? I noticed the COMPAQ BIOS has three different timing settings for
handling the CD-ROM drive but I don't know what any of them do so I left it at
the default setting. Maybe there are some additional hardware tests I should
run on the COMPAQ setup disks I downloaded from HP.
I am just grasping at straws now...
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