Re: [gentoo-user] desperation question: disklabel, unable to write to disk, etc.

["Alan E. Davis" <lngndvs@gmail.com>]

Thank you, Neil:

Neither of these worked:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
dd: writing `/dev/hda': Input/output error
1+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 3.96744 seconds, 0.0 kB/s

gparted shows the whole disk as unallocated.  When I try to install a
new partition, it wants to install a disklabel.  The attempt fails.


What I don't understand---this happened after installing Sabayon on
/dev/hda8.  The first time I downloaded sabayon (mini x86) the md5sum
was incorrect, but the install tried to work.  The second time, with a
correct md5sum, I tried to install on /dev/hda1, with errors on that
partition.  Then, I reinstalled on /dev/hda8.  The install seemed to
go really quickly, perhaps TOO quickly.  Then, ever since rebooting,
the system knows there's a disk.  But something isn't right.

I am starting to wonder whether a virus or trojan was hitchhiking on
the blown iso download?  Very seldom does wget fail.  I think the
download may have been resumed from a different mirror.

I don't know where to go from here.  Maybe try some other install cds.
 Maybe back to a gentoo CD.

Thank you again.

Alan


On 12/23/06, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 01:23:13 +0000, Alan E. Davis wrote:
>
> > Can anyone point me to the right literature on line or other help?  It
> > could be a hardware problem, but one suspects the partition table and
> > boot record.  Gpart was unable to determine the sector size.
>
> Try running cfdisk with the -z option. This ignores the MBR and starts
> afresh with a blank one. If that fails, try zeroing the MBR with
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX bs=512 count=1
>
> If it still fails, it would appear to be a broken disk.
>
>
> --
> Neil Bothwick
>
> To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists
> solutions are things that are still all mixed up.
>
>
>


-- 
Alan Davis, Kagman High School, Saipan  lngndvs@gmail.com     1-670-256-2043

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I
must share it with other people who like it.
                                          --------Richard Stallman
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