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From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: problems bringing minix up
Message-ID: <482@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Thu, 20-Aug-87 06:53:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: ast.482
Posted: Thu Aug 20 06:53:18 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 09:47:50 EDT
References: <692@ucdavis.UUCP>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl ()
Distribution: world
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 22
Keywords: Help!

In article <692@ucdavis.UUCP> martin@iris.ucdavis.edu (Bruce K. Martin Jr.) writes:
>
>I have just recieved the Minix 1.1 distribution from Prentice Hall and am
>trying to install it on an IBM PC/XT with a stock 10Mb hard disk.
>Minix seems to boot and run fine from the floppies.  However, when I attempt
>to use the fixed disk, things go haywire.

Frequently this sort of problem is caused by disk controllers that are
nonstandard in some sense.  As a general rule, before trying to mkfs a
file system, it is a good idea to type
dd if=/dev/hd0 of=/dev/null count=1000
and see what happens.  If that fails, the controller and the driver don't
like each other.  The xt_wini.c and at_wini.c drivers I posted a couple
of weeks ago are MUCH more robust than the 1.1 drivers.  I would suggest
fishing them out of the archive and trying them.

(Hard disk problems are the most common difficulty with MINIX.  I have
gotten umpteen messages, paper mail letters, and phone calls about this,
which is why I am posting this reply rather than replying by e-mail as
I normally do).

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)