Hard drive problem

["V.H.Berk" <vberk@wi.leidenuniv.nl>]

I'm getting a whole bunch of errors while tying to use Linux, such as:

crc error  system halted
ext2 error in superblock
free_one_bmd: bad directory entry 00000008
trying to free non-existent swap-page
segmentation fault
currupted filesystem

These errors come completely at random. Sometimes during installation of the
base system, but usually during installation of packages. I've tried to install
Debian 2.1.6 beta (slink), but also various older versions of Linux (a total of
four). All of them gave the same errors, quite at random.

Windows 95 doesn't experience any errors at all and works fine. I've partitioned
every byte of the disk for windows and it worked OK, so there are no physical disk
errors on the surface. Sound, Zip, CD, Ethernet, everything works fine under windows.

Moving the IDE devices to other positions didn't help, the same problems came up.
I've tried changing the partition size (5GB 4GB 3GB 2000MB 800MB) both with and
without swap partition. Nothing worked.

Several times I managed to get a base system on the disk, which booted OK, but
when I started installing packages or moving things around on the disk, the
same errors popped up (appearently at random.)

I've tried to disable several features of the disk with hdparm, but it didn't seem
to work either.


This is my system:

Processor:
  Intel Pentium II  (Slot 1) 350 MHz
  512 kb cache (write back)

Motherboard:
  Chaintech  6BTM
  i440BX - W977TF
  Bios release 11/06/98

IDE Devices:   Linux reports i82371 PIIX Triton ATA chips.
Pr. Master:
  Western Digital Caviar AC310100B
  LBA 1232/255/63 UDMA 10.1 GB w/512kb cache
Sec. Master:
  AOpen CD-ROM (ATAPI)
Sec. Slave:
  IOMega ZIP100 IDE (ATAPI)

Memory:
  DIMM SDRAM 128 single bank

Video:
  S3 AGP 4MB - 362B

PCI:
  Creative SB PCI64
  NE2000 NIC


I have no clue what to do next, so if anyone has some options, I'm
willing to try them out.

Thanks in advance. Vincent Berk.