I'm trying to install Slackware 10.0 on an old machine someone gave
me, but am running into a strange problem. The install goes fine, but
when I reboot the machine afterwards, as soon as it gets to the OS
boot I just see "F 40 40 40 40 40..." with a couple hundred 40's and
then nothing happens. I saw this problem before on another machine
and it was fixed by having Lilo write to the MBR instead of the
superblock, but on this machine it seems to be happening no matter
what I do.

On a side note, booting from a floppy isn't an option at the moment
because the floppy controller doesn't seem to be working (or all 3 of
my spare drives are not working, which is entirely possible).

Any ideas on what's wrong?


Regards,
David P. Donahue
ddonahue@ccs.neu.edu

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cyber0ne wrote:

<lilo isn't in the mood>

As i had some problems myself that week of this kind- master/slave jumper
setup o.k.? You didn't master/ slave jumper the drives and have a
cable-select wire?

Full thread below
<ckjmfa$18j$1@newsreader2.netcologne.de>

- --
- -=SilliCone=-

"as appealing as it might seem, it is impossible to patch or upgrade users"
<Security Warrior>
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On 2004-10-17, cyber0ne <ddonahue@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:

> superblock, but on this machine it seems to be happening no matter
> what I do.

If you have another HDD, give it a try. Iffy/dying HHD's will exhibit this
kind of behavior. I recently tossed one after flogging several OS's through
it, seemingly without install/boot probs. But, the bottom line was always
bizarre probs, errors, disappearing files, etc.

nb

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:17:31 -0700, cyber0ne wrote:

> I'm trying to install Slackware 10.0 on an old machine someone gave
> me, but am running into a strange problem. The install goes fine, but
> when I reboot the machine afterwards, as soon as it gets to the OS
> boot I just see "F 40 40 40 40 40..." with a couple hundred 40's and
> then nothing happens. I saw this problem before on another machine
> and it was fixed by having Lilo write to the MBR instead of the
> superblock, but on this machine it seems to be happening no matter
> what I do. [ ... ]

> Any ideas on what's wrong?

Idunno, if you don't provide /etc/lilo.conf ...
Maybe this helps though:

man lilo |col -b|grep -A5 40
generated 40, 99 and 9A. A partial list of error codes
follows:

00 no error
01 invalid disk command
02 address mark not found
--
40 seek failure (BIOS)
40 cylinder>1023 (LILO)
99 invalid second stage index sector (LILO)
9A no second stage loader signature (LILO)
AA drive not ready
FF sense operation failed

Error code 40 is generated by the BIOS, or by LILO during
the conversion of a linear (24-bit) disk address to a geo*
metric (C:H:S) address. On older systems which do not
support lba32 (32-bit) addressing, this error may also be
generated. Errors 99 and 9A usually mean the map file (-m
or map=) is not readable, likely because LILO was not re-

--
-Menno.

Tried 2 different hard drives. Neither of them are particularly new,
but I would think it unlikely that both would fail in the same way.


Regards,
David P. Donahue
ddonahue@ccs.neu.edu


notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote in message news:<UErcd.274565$3l3.240242@attbi_s03>...
> On 2004-10-17, cyber0ne <ddonahue@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>
> > superblock, but on this machine it seems to be happening no matter
> > what I do.
>
> If you have another HDD, give it a try. Iffy/dying HHD's will exhibit this
> kind of behavior. I recently tossed one after flogging several OS's through
> it, seemingly without install/boot probs. But, the bottom line was always
> bizarre probs, errors, disappearing files, etc.
>
> nb

There are cable-select-specific wires? ew. I've got one hard drive
(primary master) and one cd drive (primary slave). I've tried 2
different cables, same problem. Unplugging the CD drive entirely
doesn't fix it either.


Regards,
David P. Donahue
ddonahue@ccs.neu.edu


SilliCone <noone@nowhere.net> wrote in message news:<ckt9md$838$2@newsreader2.netcologne.de>...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> cyber0ne wrote:
>
> <lilo isn't in the mood>
>
> As i had some problems myself that week of this kind- master/slave jumper
> setup o.k.? You didn't master/ slave jumper the drives and have a
> cable-select wire?
>
> Full thread below
> <ckjmfa$18j$1@newsreader2.netcologne.de>
>
> - --
> - -=SilliCone=-
>
> "as appealing as it might seem, it is impossible to patch or upgrade users"
> <Security Warrior>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.2-rc1-SuSE (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFBcioKZa9iGSXQ4MIRAtyGAKCm+HwBgr7foVLy1Z7PX9 CzahwzfgCgrf0T
> zSMdcAIYwAwObW9Wt5kK1mM=
> =+6in
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

"seek failure (BIOS)"

Interesting. And this happened on 2 different drives in testing.
It's an old machine, perhaps looking for a BIOS firmware update could
be the answer. Of course, that will more than likely require a
working floppy drive, which could in itself get around this problem.
I guess my priority now is the floppy.


Regards,
David P. Donahue
ddonahue@ccs.neu.edu


Menno Duursma <pan@desktop.lan> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.10.17.21.53.51.720852@desktop.lan>. ..
> On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:17:31 -0700, cyber0ne wrote:
>
> > I'm trying to install Slackware 10.0 on an old machine someone gave
> > me, but am running into a strange problem. The install goes fine, but
> > when I reboot the machine afterwards, as soon as it gets to the OS
> > boot I just see "F 40 40 40 40 40..." with a couple hundred 40's and
> > then nothing happens. I saw this problem before on another machine
> > and it was fixed by having Lilo write to the MBR instead of the
> > superblock, but on this machine it seems to be happening no matter
> > what I do. [ ... ]
>
> > Any ideas on what's wrong?
>
> Idunno, if you don't provide /etc/lilo.conf ...
> Maybe this helps though:
>
> man lilo |col -b|grep -A5 40
> generated 40, 99 and 9A. A partial list of error codes
> follows:
>
> 00 no error
> 01 invalid disk command
> 02 address mark not found
> --
> 40 seek failure (BIOS)
> 40 cylinder>1023 (LILO)
> 99 invalid second stage index sector (LILO)
> 9A no second stage loader signature (LILO)
> AA drive not ready
> FF sense operation failed
>
> Error code 40 is generated by the BIOS, or by LILO during
> the conversion of a linear (24-bit) disk address to a geo*
> metric (C:H:S) address. On older systems which do not
> support lba32 (32-bit) addressing, this error may also be
> generated. Errors 99 and 9A usually mean the map file (-m
> or map=) is not readable, likely because LILO was not re-

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:30:40 +0000, Menno Duursma wrote:

> On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:17:31 -0700, cyber0ne wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to install Slackware 10.0 on an old machine someone gave
>> me, but am running into a strange problem. The install goes fine, but
>> when I reboot the machine afterwards, as soon as it gets to the OS
>> boot I just see "F 40 40 40 40 40..." with a couple hundred 40's and
>> then nothing happens. I saw this problem before on another machine
>> and it was fixed by having Lilo write to the MBR instead of the
>> superblock, but on this machine it seems to be happening no matter
>> what I do. [ ... ]
>
>> Any ideas on what's wrong?
>
> 40 cylinder>1023 (LILO)

You have too big a drive for the BIOS. I don't know what the fix
is - maybe live with 32 MB or something. Or is that GB? ;-)

Something about LBA support.... check man lilo.

Good Luck!
Rich

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:41:48 -0700, cyber0ne wrote:

> Tried 2 different hard drives. Neither of them are particularly new,
> but I would think it unlikely that both would fail in the same way.

Then it's definitely that the drives are too big for the BIOS.

I can't imagine there not being a fix for it - for some reason, the
acronym LBA comes to mind, but I've never had that particular problem,
so I'm guessing.

Good Luck!
Rich

Hmm, your LBA suggestion led me to find the difference between LBA and
CHS and I used that information in fiddling around with the machine's
BIOS. I'm not _entirely_ sure how, but it seems to be booting now.
What I ended up doing was telling the BIOS not to auto-detect anything
about HDA, and just fed it the cylinder-head-sector information and
told it to use LBA. Seems to be working now, but I'll be sure and
check back with this newsgroup if that changes Thanks for
everyone's help!


Regards,
David P. Donahue
ddonahue@ccs.neu.edu


Rich Grise <rich@example.net> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.10.18.06.25.45.115975@example.net>. ..
> On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:30:40 +0000, Menno Duursma wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:17:31 -0700, cyber0ne wrote:
> >
> >> I'm trying to install Slackware 10.0 on an old machine someone gave
> >> me, but am running into a strange problem. The install goes fine, but
> >> when I reboot the machine afterwards, as soon as it gets to the OS
> >> boot I just see "F 40 40 40 40 40..." with a couple hundred 40's and
> >> then nothing happens. I saw this problem before on another machine
> >> and it was fixed by having Lilo write to the MBR instead of the
> >> superblock, but on this machine it seems to be happening no matter
> >> what I do. [ ... ]
>
> >> Any ideas on what's wrong?
> >
> > 40 cylinder>1023 (LILO)
>
> You have too big a drive for the BIOS. I don't know what the fix
> is - maybe live with 32 MB or something. Or is that GB? ;-)
>
> Something about LBA support.... check man lilo.
>
> Good Luck!
> Rich