grant@torque.net
Wed, 16 Sep 1998 07:13:55 -0400 (EDT)
> I have uploaded a data file from my zip disk. The disk is a blank
> PC formatted disk. I also took the recomendation to create a /dev/sda1
> partition.
Ok, I am a lot closer to understanding your problem. I think I entered into
this discussion a bit late, so I may have missed some of the background
details - are you using the current PPA driver or my old one ? If you its
the current one, you'll have to work with David to figure out a solution
to this.
First, moments before looking at your dump, I realised the significance of
what is happening to your partition table. Notice that the write is
occurring, but some of the numbers are being scrambled. The one that
opened my eye was the Id field changing from 83 to 3. That's a single
bit change.
> :/dev/sda1 1 1 96 98288 83 Linux native
> :/dev/sda1 1 1 2144 2195328 3 XENIX usr
Then, I looked at 2144 vs 96. That's also a single bit change. The
2195328 is messier - several bits have changed.
Now, looking at the dump you sent me: below is a fragment that should
include the standard "Invalid System Disk" messages. Look at all the
blanks that have changed into ticks (a single bit error):
0040600 003 \b 001 \a \r \n I n f a l i d ` # y
0040620 s t e m ` $ i s k o M \n D i s k
0040640 ` \t o O ` % b r o r 177 M \n R e p
0040660 l a c e ` 4 h e ` d i s k l a
0040700 n d ` $ h e n ` r e c s ` ! n
So, what's going on ? Ironically, this is the same issue that
"amicus curia" raised last week - you have a flaky parallel port or
cable. If Windows works fine, it is because the driver there has
detected the errors and taken evasive action. I'm no longer up to
date on the things that you should do with PPA, but basically you
need to try using a lesser communication mode - and/or increasing the
port-settling delay.
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Grant R. Guenther grant@torque.net
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