finally found workaround to random crashing during RH73 install

[Eric De Mund <ead-redhat-install-list ixian com>]

People,

I finally got my RH73 CD-ROM install to succeed on my older Intel
VS440FX motherboard with Pentium Pro 200MHz processor. Previously, it
was failing during package installs, though not always on the same
package. The error message on screen was:

    There was an error installing abiword-0.99.5-1. This can indicate
    media failure, lack of disk space, and/or hardware problems. This is
    a fatal error and your install will be aborted. Please verify your
    media and try your install again.

    Press the OK button to reboot your system.

The corresponding error message in (/mnt/sysimage)/root/install.log was:

    unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/lib/AbiSuite/bin/AbiWord_d;\
    3d1b4c54: cpio: MD5 sum mismatch

This combination is what   f i n a l l y   worked after several days of
struggling:

    - Used boot arguments of "text nomce nodma nofb".
    - Specified that I wanted ext2 rather than ext3 filesystems.

It may be the case that a subset of the above would have been
sufficient. (Although not solely "ext2 rather than ext3", which was
tested but didn't eliminate the dreaded "There was an error installing
<foo>. This can indicate media failure, etc." error message.)

Previously, I'd tried these following steps to try to solve or work
around this problem, to no avail:

    - Ran memtest86 on the 128Mb RAM in this machine for 140 hours; zero
      errors found.

    - Formatted Fujitsu MPE3064AT and Seagate ST31722A hard disks FAT32
      and then level-5 tested them with SpinRite 5.0; zero errors found.

    - Burned Valhalla .iso's to 700Mb name-brand (Memorex) CDs using
      CDRWIN 3.9A, speed 1x on a Windows 2000 host. Interestingly, "dd
      if=/dev/cdrom" (performed on a third machine) stopped growing at
      668,803,072 bytes, i.e. at greater than the expected 668,499,968
      bytes of valhalla-i386-disc1.iso. However, the first 668,499,968
      bytes of the CD did have the correct MD5 checksum of cb91810c
      e8173039 fed24420 407e4c59. I do wonder what those extra bytes
      were.

    - Burned Valhalla .iso's same as above, except using Nero Burning
      Rom 5.5.8.2 on that Windows 2000 host. This time, "dd if=/dev/\
      cdrom" stopped growing at the expected 668,499,968 bytes. Happily,
      still with the correct MD5 checksum.

    - Tried a text install. A different package install failed.

    - Specified that I wanted ext2 rather than ext3 filesystems.

    - Moved the CD-ROM drive from the second IDE channel to the first
      IDE channel (and moved the two hard disks to the second IDE
      channel). A different package install failed.

    - Swapped out the CD-ROM drive and put in a spare.
    - Swapped out the spare CD-ROM drive and put in a second spare.
    - Swapped out the second spare CD-ROM drive and put in a brand new
      CD-ROM drive.

    - Swapped out the IDE ribbon cable and put in a spare. A different
      package install failed.

At this point I was worried that my motherboard and/or processor was
flaky; this is a 5-7 year old machine, after all. However, I *had*
tested it thoroughly before this whole process began, even letting
memtest86 run on it for 5 days while I was out of town. And no errors
were found. (If anyone knows of a good free processor tester to comple-
ment memtest86 for memory testing, I'd be most grateful to learn of it.)

So I scoured <http://www.redhat.com/mailing-lists/redhat-install-list/>
thoroughly, and combined what I found there with what Rick Stevens had
suggested in private communication.

So thank you to Rick Stevens and Dwight Gordon for your contributions
both to me personally and to the Red Hat Install mailing list, publicly,
regarding this problem. And thank you to M Brodd, also suffering through
this problem, for sharing what you tried and for being a sympathetic
sounding board.

Regards,
Eric

May you dance like no one is subject to <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>.
--
Eric De Mund <ead ixian com> | Ixian Systems, Inc. | 53 49 B2 23 AF 6C 20 81
http://www.ixian.com/ead/    | Mountain View, CA   | ED DD 4C 81 AA C9 D1 A5