Subject: Re: installation boot fails with standard bootdisk on 486SX/33

From: "Daniel Lynes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 22:28:14 +0700

On Mon, 12 Aug 1996 14:20:06 -0500, Christopher R. Hertel wrote:

>most cases hardware will be blamed, even though the problem appears on
>a variety of memory/CPU/motherboard/add-on configurations, and the same
>configurations can run other OSs (*including* older versions of Linux)

The external cache disable is also required on certain hardware
configurations
for installation of OS/2.  I would assume the systems where this
problem exists
under LInux are the same ones affected by the same problem under OS/2.

One thing to check, is to make sure you don't have a buggy AMI BIOS. 
Make
sure your BIOS date is at least April, 1993.  If not, contact AMI, and
you can
order an upgrade for about $20 USD.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 09:46:01 -0400 (EDT)

I previously wrote:

> Installation fails on this old machine shortly after hitting return at the
> 'Boot Parameters' prompt using the standard bootdisk. Linux 1.2.13 runs fine.

Additional info: after hitting return I get from 3 to 6 dots and then a 'bad
disk' message.

The disk is not bad, however.

I divine from the messages I have seen that this is a problem with the boot
loader on the boot disk, not linux. Also, that disabling cache may work to get
by this problem.

Unfortunately, disabling cache did not work.

This machine is old but useful. I am helping a school district in Maine which
has many such old machines and will likely be donated a lot more. We are trying
to standardize on Debian so that the 20 to 50 people involved in support across
the 10 buildings and 200 square miles of the district will have a common
approach.

The easy thing to do would be to upgrade the motherboard. Anyone have any other
suggestions?

Thanks,
Michael Laing