[Leaplist] Floppy problem in Lenny - Debian-to all

John Kramer jakramer at ascenditsolutions.com
Fri Jul 13 10:03:49 EDT 2007 

Have you tried booting from the floppy drive with a boot disk? Just as a
check of the underlying HW and BIOS. 

-----Original Message-----
From: leaplist-bounces at leap-cf.org [mailto:leaplist-bounces at leap-cf.org] On
Behalf Of Cecil Hornbaker
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 9:00 AM
To: This is the Leap Main List
Subject: Re: [Leaplist] Floppy problem in Lenny - Debian-to all

On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 22:34 -0400, Whit Hansell wrote:
> Richard, Phil, John, Aaron and Cecil,

Sure a lot of time and effort to get a floppy working but I know I never
want to give up on that kind of thing (bull headed).  I will be back
home on Saturday and will have access to a lenny/sid system with floppy
drive and with 2.6.21-2-k7 and 2.6.18-4-k7 kernels.  I can verify
operation of the floppy and provide comparison information if needed.  I
know the others have already done this but I can provide another data
point if needed.

> Thanks so much for your help. And everyone else too. I'm giving up on 
> this problem and going to come at it in a different way. The reason is 
> that I think that for some reason my kernel is screwed up and I don't 
> know what to do about it. I've done two dist-upgrades using aptitude and 
> in the first one the next kernel that was supposed to be upgraded to 
> ended up w. broken dependencies and was installed, but w. a notation of 
> broken dependencies. Or so it seemed to state. Then I went back and did 
> another dist-upgrade and it said because of the broken dependencies it 
> would be removed and so I went ahead w. that. I then tried to
> 
> brightsun:/# mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /media/floppy0
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/fd0,
> missing codepage or other error
> In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
> dmesg | tail or so
> 
> brightsun:/# dmesg | tail
> FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors
> VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev fd0.
> FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors
> VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev fd0.
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors
> VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev fd0.
> 
> The latest one installed on this drive is "linux-image-2.6.18-4-486 w. 
> the version installed stated to be 2.6.18.dsfg.1-12 I have no idea what 
> the dsfg.1-12 means.
> 
> The image it tried to install but which had broken dependencies is 
> linux-image-2.6.21-2-486 w. the installed version having been 2.6.21-5. 
> Anyway it was supposedly removed successfully, I guess.
> 
> So my thinking is that I'm going to use another drive I have and do a 
> netinstall of Lenny on it and try to transfer my data over to it and see 
> if I can get this kernel problem taken care of. I know it's going to be 
> a total pain because the version I've got now is a carryover from Etch 
> and the netinstall w. have some newer packages on it. It has Iceweasel 
> instead of Iceape which is a linked version of Mozilla, OO 2.2 instead 
> of 2.0, etc., etc., etc. But I don't know what else to do for now.
> 
> Anyway, I want to thank everyone who has chimed in for your help. It has 
> been an experience and I've learned some things even tho' it's not 
> solved. I reall appreciate your efforts. Thanks again.
> 
> Oh, and I did a mount to check for an ext3 filesystem on a drive after I 
> reformatted a floppy on this machine using the ext2 -j situation but it 
> didn't work either.
> 
> BTW, after I wrote the above, I checked on the depends and conflicts on 
> the kernel image that was messed up and this is what I found.
> 
> '***
> 
> brightsun:/# aptitude show linux-image-2.6.21-2-486
> 
> Package: linux-image-2.6.21-2-486
> 
> New: yes
> 
> State: not installed
> 
> Version: 2.6.21-5
> 
> Priority: optional
> 
> Section: admin
> 
> Maintainer: Debian Kernel Team <debian-kernel at lists.debian.org>
> 
> Uncompressed Size: 52.2M
> 
> Depends: module-init-tools (>= 0.9.13), initramfs-tools (>= 0.55) | 
> yaird (>=
> 
> 0.0.12-8) | linux-initramfs-tool
> 
> Suggests: linux-doc-2.6.21, grub (>= 0.97-3) | lilo (>= 19.1)
> 
> Conflicts: grub (<= 0.95+cvs20040624-17), initramfs-tools (< 0.55), yaird
(<
> 
> 0.0.12-8)
> 
> Provides: linux-image, linux-image-2.6, linux-modules-2.6.21-2-486
> 
> Description: Linux 2.6.21 image on x86
> 
> This package provides the binary image and pre-built loadable modules 
> for Linux
> 
> kernel 2.6.21 on x86 and compatible machines.
> 
> 
> 
> For some reason it states there are conflicts w. installed programs. 
> Maybe they will clear out when I reboot.
> 
> 
> Already installed from previous dist-upgrade runs:
> 
> 
> I have grub 0.97-27 installed which is greater than what the above 
> states is needed and is listed as a conflict.
> 
> 
> I have module-init-tools 3.3-pre11-1
> 
> 
> I have initramfs-tools 0.88 which is greater than the 0.55 that is 
> mentioned as a conflict above.
> 
> 
> the cvs that is installed is 1:1.12.13-8 which the description states is 
> for use w. the 2.6 kernel.
> 
> 
> 
> Not installed.....
> 
> 
> Yaird 0.0.12-20, but I think it is an either/or situation w. 
> initramfs-tools but not sure as it is included in the conflicts line.
> 
> "Yet Another mkInitRD
> 
> Yaird generates initial boot images in initramfs format.
> 
> The boot image is an intermediate step between the boot loader (eg Grub, 
> Lilo) and the init scripts on the root file system; it loads modules and 
> enables devices to a level where the kernel can access the real root 
> file system, and then hands over control
> 
> to the init scripts."
> 
> 
> "Compared with earlier implementations like mkinitrd, it does a better 
> job of deciding which modules are needed for your system, so it produces 
> smaller images and there is less risk of making an image that will not 
> boot. This comes at a price:
> 
> only Linux 2.6 is supported (because 2.6 has sysfs, which makes
> 
> it a lot easier to do a hardware inventory).
> 
> 
> See mkinitrd.yaird(8) for how to activate the program.
> 
> 
> See http://wiki.debian.org/InitrdReplacementOptions for status and
> 
> comparison with other ramdisk tools.
> 
> 
> Homepage: http://yaird.alioth.debian.org/" Synaptic description.
> 
> 
> Oh well, I'm going to mess w. it tomorrow again.
> 
> Again, thanks for all your help guys. If anyone has an idea on 
> resurrecting this to a normal state let me know. Otherwise I will be 
> formatting another drive over the weekend and messing w. this once I get 
> it up to speed. Thanks so much.
> 
> Whit
> 
> Richard F. Ostrow Jr. wrote:
> > On Wed, July 11, 2007 9:24 pm, Whit Hansell wrote:
> >   
> > <snip>
> 
> 
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> Leaplist at leap-cf.org
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