Ongoing saga of upgrading my old Woody

[David Teague <dbt@cs.wcu.edu>]

I have a Woody installation, done circa Nov 2001, on which I have
done apt-get update, then apt-get install aptitude.

This was the last thing I have done that was successful.


OK I reread the installation and upgrade notes, none of which directly
address my problem which is updating my old Woody installation to current
Stable.


Per suggestions on this list, I have run  

apt-get dist-upgrade || apt-get -f install

It fails like this:

elentari:~# apt-get dist-upgrade || apt-get -f install
Reading Package Lists... Error!
E: Read error - read (5 Input/output error)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
Reading Package Lists... Error!
E: Read error - read (5 Input/output error)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
elentari:~# 


I ran dpkg -l, dpkg --audit, got a  bus error

I ran dselect, chose apt method, tried to update the list of available
packages, got this error:


Hit http://http.us.debian.org stable/main Release
Hit http://http.us.debian.org stable/contrib Packages
Hit http://http.us.debian.org stable/contrib Release
Hit http://http.us.debian.org stable/non-free Packages
Hit http://http.us.debian.org stable/non-free Release
Hit http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main Release
Hit http://security.debian.org stable/updates/contrib Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org stable/updates/contrib Release
Hit http://security.debian.org stable/updates/non-free Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org stable/updates/non-free Release
Hit http://non-US.debian.org stable/non-US/main Packages
Hit http://non-US.debian.org stable/non-US/main Release
Hit http://non-US.debian.org stable/non-US/contrib Packages
Hit http://non-US.debian.org stable/non-US/contrib Release
Hit http://non-US.debian.org stable/non-US/non-free Packages
Hit http://non-US.debian.org stable/non-US/non-free
Reading Package Lists... Error!
E: Read error - read (5 Input/output error)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.


I haver read the documents, the help files, the man pages with zero
results. I have asked on the list and got some answers that appear to have
got me some place, but NOT FIXED.

Now will someone PLEASE help me? I have asked before about this before.


David Teague