On Thu, 2004-06-03 at 17:55, Ed wrote: > Nick Rout wrote: > > >On Tue, 2004-06-01 at 22:03, Paul Wilkins wrote: > > > > > >>Ed wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >>>I have been trying to install Mandrake 10 official on my PIII-733 with > >>>320MB of ram. I have installed it once or twice successfully on this > >>>machine before but it doesn't work anymore. It seems halfway through > >>>the installation, my cd-rom drive stalls. It goes quiet and makes a > >>>very slight scratching noise. > >>> > >>> > >>Could the drive be having trouble reading the disc? > >> > >> > > > >does the cd's md5sum check out? > > > > > > > > > i'm not exactly sure what an md5 sum is but i can tell you that it was > installed on another computer successfully with the same discs.
ok sorry, an md5sum is a number arrived at by applying the md5 algorithm to a series of data. basically it is a guarantee [1] that what *you* have is what you are *meant* to have . on a linux box you rin, for example the command, [EMAIL PROTECTED] gentoo $ md5sum gensmall.iso b2c244923a0ddf4b266fb2bf665f65ac gensmall.iso the number starting b2c244... is the mdksum of the file gensmall.iso. The distributor of gensmall.iso will publish the file's original md5sum on its web site, if you get the same number as they advertise, then you know that the file was not corrupted when you downloaded it. If you have written a cd from the iso, and the cd is in /dev/cdrom, then you can check its md5sum as follows: cat /dev/cdrom | md5sum [1] there are statistical possibilities of identical md5sums from two different files. Think about 16^32 possible md5sum numbers, and the infinite variety of possible files in the universe. However a difference of one byte in the file will make a big difference in the md5sum. Consider this: [EMAIL PROTECTED] gentoo $ echo "1234"|md5sum e7df7cd2ca07f4f1ab415d457a6e1c13 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] gentoo $ echo "1235"|md5sum 0fa924209085a5713f79e6a30649455f - The difference between the string "1234" and "1235" is similar to the osrt of difference you might get on a corrupted download, or a corrupted cd-write, but gives a completely different md5sum. Here endeth the lesson. It sounds like your cd is ok, so you must look for other reasons for the failure, like hardware difficulties. SImply speaking installing a distro from a cd really tests out the interaction of your ide bus, the cd-rom drive, and how the whole lot copes with cdr/cdrw. Some combinations of hardware just crap out on the very long concerted file transfers on an install, particularly from cdr/cdrw. Try writing the cd at 2x or 4x speed. try swapping out he cd drive for another one. try swapping the cd-drive to another ide channel. > > Ed. > PS. it would be good if you could tell me what an md5 sum is.
