J D wrote:
> dude, don't worry about leading me into more problems. i'll try anything
> that might work. i'm a newbie, and if it means having to get expert help,
> then i might just format my hard drive and start over.
>
Done that before ample times. I never participated in lists like this until
recently, and went through install failure and reinstall attempts, until I knew
that the problem wasn't due to the local dude or machine, that I had done
absolutely nothing wrong, and later learned through mags and reviews that I
wasn't alone.
However, today, Linux distributions are more mature; therefore, restarting the
install process is surely worth a try. This has happened to me before, where
an initial attempt at installing didn't work, but a subsequent one did. The
most stubborn portion of the installs that finally worked, but which failed in
this particular step, was creating boot floppies in the final step(s) of the
install process. However, as long as the rest of the install works, then boot
floppies can be created after booting up the system, from the root login shell,
using mkbootdisk, or dd, albeit mkbootdisk automates the process; although,
basically only requiring a little less reading.
My experiences were with Slackware in 95, WGS in 97 (never got that one
installed because there was a defect in the cdrom install), and since then RH.
Based on all of the people exchanging in these mailing lists, Mandrake is
installable, so give it another try. You shouldn't need to reformat your hdd;
although, you may need to recreate your Mandrake partitions and filesystems.
Give the install another try. If you're installing to the second hdd, then
this might possibly cause problems with respect to the /boot filesystem, if
you're also placing it on the second hdd. This shouldn't happen, but might.
If you install everything on the second hdd, then you'll want to place LILO on
the first hdd, or create a boot floppy for sure.
If you're using large HDDs, and the second attempt at install fails, then you
might find useful information in the Large Disk HOWTO, of the LDP, at
http://www.linuxdoc.org
mike
> >From: Mike Corbeil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >Subject: Re: [newbie] MAJOR PROBLEM!!!!
> >Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 07:55:05 -0400
> >
> >J D wrote:
> >
> > > i don't know what i did, but here's the problem: when i try to boot, it
> > > starts off normally, but when it checks the root filesystem, it fails.
> >this
> > > is what it says after:
> > >
> > > The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
> > > filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
> > > filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
> >is
> > > corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
> > > e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
> > >
> > > :Is a directory while trying to open/
> > > [FAILED]
> > >
> > > ***An error occured during the file system check.
> > > ***Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
> > > ***when you leave the shell.
> > >
> > > give root password for maitenance
> > > (or type Control-D for normal startup):
> > >
> > > if i type control d, it just reboots and goes back to the same thing.
> >shit,
> > > i've only had linux a month. someone please help me out!!
> >
> >Don't do ctrl-d, give root password to go into maintenance mode, and
> >then
> >provide a copy of your /etc/fstab file, /etc/lilo.conf, and the output of
> >dmesg. You'll want to run dmesg so that the output is redirected to a
> >file,
> >which you could then copy into the email, along with the fstab and
> >lilo.conf
> >files.
> >
> >To redirect the output of dmesg to a file, do the following
> >
> > dmesg > dmesg.out 2>&1
> >
> >You probably don't need the 2>&1 portion, but it won't hurt to add it.
> >
> >Or, take a look through the output of dmesg yourself, to see if you find
> >any
> >other indications of the error.
> >
> >This is all I can think of recommending at the moment and I wouldn't want
> >to
> >direct a user to run e2fsck or debugfs. For that, you'ld definitely want
> >to
> >post to the expert mailing list. I've done this, but not many times;
> >therefore, I wouldn't want to risk leading you into making your problem
> >worse
> >than it already is.
> >
> >You might want to post the follow-up with the additional information
> >requested, to the expert mailing list anyway. Also, include the version of
> >the
> >OS involved or in question. You can add the output of
> >
> > uname -a
> >
> >for this.
> >
> >You might also want to try running startx once you're in maintenance mode,
> >to
> >see what this does. Might not bring up X, but also shouldn't cause any
> >harm.
> >If it does bring up X, then exit from that and reboot, to see if the
> >problem's
> >been corrected. I haven't had quite the problem you're describing in this
> >sense, but occassionally can't bring up X the first time I run startx, but
> >trying startx again has always worked, so far.
> >
> >mike
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
