4.2 Installation Problems

["Dennis Soper" <dsoper efn org>]

Hi,

Due to a little "disagreement" a certain piece of  beta-test software 
had with Linux, I found myself reinstalling (hooray for backups!) 
this past weekend.

To make a long story short, I had problems.  The first time I 
reinstalled, it hung when Emacs was installing.  So I started over.  
The second time, all went well.  Then I rebooted after I installed 
LILO and fsck discovered that my brand-new file system had errors, 
and that I should run it manually.  I did, and ended up with about 25 
blocks in /lost+found.  Thinking that this was a pretty inauspicious 
way to begin a fresh install, I did it again.  

The third time, everything worked.  I created some user accounts, 
reinstalled a few configuration files, fiddled with my fvwm 
configuration (nothing complex, just changing colors, and stuff like 
that), unpacked a piece of zipped documentation, and read it.  
Nothing crashed, nothing acted odd.  Then I shut off the computer and 
went to bed.

The next day, I booted up and got filesystem errors again, and after 
I ran fsck again, I ended up with 1block sitting all forlorn, and 
fortunately, alone,  in /etc/lost+found.

I didn't have this sort of trouble before the install, except for a 
few filesystem errors that were caused by the above-mentioned beta 
software crashing.  I reformatted my Linux-native partitions 
before each install.  I'm running a P-133 Micron Millenia with a 
BusLogic Flashpoint SCSI and a Conner 1.0 GB hard drive.  I have to 
use Windoze 95 for school and such, so I've got the older version on 
a 250 MB DOS partition, and I'm booting between the systems on a 
regular basis.  A friend of mine has also suggested that my hard 
drive might be getting ready to fail, and that fsck is catching this. 
 Any suggestions or advice?  

Thanks in advance,
Dennis Soper
dsoper efn org