NetBSD installation problem

I recently downloaded an iso for NetBSD 3.0 and burned it to a cd. I restarted the computer and booted from the cd like I am supposed to. The setup menu eventually came up and I went through the steps. When I got to the part where it asks for a source medium to install the kernel and distribution sets, I chose CD-ROM. After selecting my CDROM device and selecting continue, I get several(pages) of these type of errors:

tar: header checksum 'A' does not match 'B'

The percentage bar does go part of the way through on most, but still doesn't finish.

I tried redownloading and reburning the iso's, but same thing happened.
I even tried the NetBSD 2.1 iso

So anyway, after all that overhead, my simple question is: "What is going on and how do I fix it?"

I am new to this "NetBSD" thing and would like to know how much I like it besides what I read Razz

Thanks a lot in advance for any help you can give me,
Laters,
Zane

This bug;
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.net ... bugs/10743

may still exist. Either that, or your burn process is flawed.

Perhaps, just to be certain, grab a FreeBSD iso and try to install that.

Cheers.

Thanks for the input. I tried the freebsd installation and all went well until it started to write data to the disk. I am guessing a hard drive problem. I will try to find another one around here to test it one, but I don't think I have one right now. If you have any other thoughts with the new found information, then let me know.

The first sign of error was:
"Write failure on transfer! (wrote -1 bytes of 1425400)"

Thanks a lot for your time and consideration,
Zane

****EDIT****

hmm.....I think it got the above error because I had the disk geometry wrong the first time(sometimes I tick myself off). Anyway, it gave me an error:



I don't know what the deal is with that....
*************

laters,
Zane

Actually, that error screams of a bad iso burn -- and certainly fits the pattern (as seen with NetBSD install).

Try using a different utility to burn the iso.

I tried a different software (Nero) and then a different burner.....no dice......

I want to use netbsd so bad...

Thanks for staying with me....I know it is annoying,
Zane

Statistically speaking, the common denominator here would have to be (all things considered) the download. While obtaining two different iso's from two such varied sources implies that neither original was corrupted, there could be something in the download process which caused the inaccuracy.

I have downloaded tons of stuff recently with no corruptions(with the possible exception of this one). I have redownloaded it and freebsd about 6 different times from different sources and using different download managers(including web browser default download managers) Also I have downloaded at least one of them on another computer just to see....no dice there. I am not saying that it isn't, but it doesn't LOOK like the download is corrupt.....don't know.

Ima cry now.....

Laters,
Zane

Out of curiosity, go to
http://www.pcbsd.org
and get the iso for PC BSD. (It's a ready made desktop versioln of FreeBSD -- 6 actually).

Download the iso, create a disk and try to install that.

If it does not work, record the fault and I will actually do some research instead of just trying things off the top of my head.

I'd be inclined to agree with Daemonguy, either something is your download process is messing up the ISOs or your burning utility (or burner) isn't doing the job right.

Before you go downloading another 650MB iso, go back to where you downloaded the others from and get the signature files, there are a few different utilities you can use (depending on your OS) which will compare this with your ISO and this will tell you if the ISO is shot.

I'm not sure about netBSD, but with FreeBSD, you'd want the file CHECKSUM.MD5.

To actually check the ISOs:
If you're using a *nix system, you can just do:

If you're using Windows, go here and get md5sum.exe: http://www.etree.org/md5com.html
The file isn't compressed or anything, just drop it into the appropriate folder for your version of Windows (shown on the same page), then Start->Run->cmd and type in:

Open the signature file you downloaded above (it's just a text file) and compare the md5 signature to the output of md5sum. If they don't match, you've got bad ISOs and you'll have to download them again. If they do match your burning process is messed up.

Well I tried the checksum suggestion and it appears the download it ok at least (yay!). I would like to make an iso of the cd I write so that I can see if it burns correctly. How can I do this?

****EDIT****

I also tried the pcbsd and it started up with what looked like the same freebsd stuff and then went to a really cool looking loading screen for pcbsd, but after that it gave me the following error:

Fatal trap: page fault while in kernel mode
fault virtural address = 0x0
fault code = supervisor write, page not present
instruction pointer = 0x20:0xc06cfce3
stack pointer = 0x20:0xcc7d7a5c
frame pointer = 0x20:0xcc7d7a74
code segments = base 0x0, limit 0xfffff, type 0x1b
= DPL 0, pres 1, def32 1, gran 1
processor ef lags = intereupt enabled, resume, IOPL = 0
current process = 166 (sh)
trap number = 12
Panic: page fault
Uptime: 17s
Cannot dump. No dump device defined.
Automatic reboot in 15s - press a key on the console to abort

*************

laters,
Zane

If you're ISO chacks out, you don't need to check it again - your burner uses that image to write the CD.

Under Windows, when I burn a cd I use a program called bcd111. However, this takes raw files, creates the ISO, then writes to the CD (all faster than any other burner I've ever used in Windows - even starting from an ISO). You might want to give this a shot, but you'll need something to rip open the ISO file into its component files (I use MagicISO for this). I've put the zip for bcd111, including skeleton directories for bootable and non-bootable CDs at http://dev2.ribosi.com/bcd111.zip
The only reason I host this on my own server is that the official download doesn't contain the the cd structure or the fancy scripts - and I think they tell you you need some other utility to work with it - which I don't have or need.

To use this:
Download and unzip the file above.

Copy the bootable_cd folder, paste it into the same directory and give it a new name (like FreeBSD) with no spaces or special characters.

Use MagicISO or some other ISO ripper to rip your CD out into the FreeBSD/files folder (if you named the new folder FreeBSD, that is)

Open the FreeBSD/bcd.cfg file in a text editor and change the boot image there to point at the one on the CD (in your files/ folder). Currently it's set to isolinux/isolinux.bin (for a Gentoo CD). Change the volume ID if you care to do so.

Open the FreeBSD/bcd.cmd file IN A TEXT EDITOR - if you just click this, windows will try to run it! On the 4th line, change isolinux/isolinux.bin to the same thing you changed it to in bcd.cfg.

Stick a blank CD in the burner, then Start->Run->cmd


If you named your copy of the bootable_cd folder something other than FreeBSD, just use whatever name with the bcd command. So, if you named it "a_boot_disk", you would call bcd with:
bcd a_boot_disk

bcd should be able to probe and find whatever CD Burner you have installed - I personally have never had to manually set that anywhere, and I've used this on quite a few systems.

For the sake of legality, the license information will be in your bcd111\nu2lic.txt file.

can't get that to work either. There is no bcd program or batch to run from what you told me to download and there is not bin file in the files directory for me to link to....I got confused(well, I have been) so I was forced to give up.

The reason I wanted an iso from the cd I already burnt was to see if the cd burnt correctly by testing the iso made from it with the md5sum program that I checked the original iso with.

Would that not tell me if the cd is burning correctly? And if so, how can I get an iso from a cd? Is there a freeware program that will let me do this?

Well, at least I am learning some things.....lol.

Sorry for being annoying:-P,
Zane

I have to ask a silly question; you have more than 16MB of ram, right?

Also disable PNPBIOS options in your bios setup.

(Starting with basics.)

Hey, no problem,

Yeah I have 128MB of ram.

As far as disabling PNPBIOS options, I ASSUME that "PNP OS Installed = NO" is the equivelent as it doesn't explicitly say disabled. If so, they yeah, its disabled.

Zane