Cannot build filesystems on install - OLD HARDWARE

[MajorJalepino]

Hi all,

Been trying to install Gentoo 32 Bit (i686) over the course of the weekend and I'm a bit stuck. I've installed Gentoo before on a couple other PC's so I generally try to avoid asking on the forums but I'm struggling to ask the right questions to google I suppose and can't find evidence of people having the same problem as me.

I've managed to fdisk and partition the drive I'm using, but using mkfs to build filesystems just isn't working.

I've tried mkfs.ext4 -b 4096 /dev/sda1, even tried to increase the blocksize to 1M but that didn't work (if anyone can explain why please do).

Command takes a while to give an output but gets to "Allocating group tables: done" and then hangs, blinking cursor with effectively frozen system.

The tty locks up, the "write to disk" light is permanently on, cannot ctrl+c to cancel the process, cannot switch to another tty to check TOP to check processes.

I'm at a loss.

Background information:
HOST: IBM R30 Model 2656
CPU: Pentium III (runs at 697mHz because the battery is always dead)
RAM: 512MB PC133
Drive: Chinese 128GB SATA M.2 SSD inside a case that adapts to IDE interface.

Install Media: 700mb CD-R with the 32bit i686 Install iso.

What I've Tried:

1. Ran Memtest86, I have a bad memory block at address 000015537744 - I have not done anything about this because I do not know how to block bad ram when booting into the live CD, if someone knows how to do this please let me know.
2. Ran a DD urandom to wipe the disk, worked fine but took all night to do.
3. Ran a destructive badblocks test on the drive, completed in 11 hours but no errors.
4. Partitioned the drives as per the BIOS/MBR section of the handbook - if anyone knows this to be incorrect for this motherboard/laptop let me know please.
4. Tried using ext2, ext4 and xfs to partition the drives, all hang after a period of time and have to poweroff to exit.

I know this was never going to be a quick job, compiling on the Pentium 3 but man it can't take more than 15mins to partition the 1GB boot partition, can it?

I will try and let this run overnight and see if it makes a difference, unless anyone answers before then with a solution.

Please let me know what command outputs I should post to give more information, I am only able to do this from the LiveCD however.

Thanks in advance.

[logrusx]

The kernel parameter mmap can be used to reserve the bad blocks of RAM memory, but I don't know how exactly. You should research it further.

I believe there's a way to install Gentoo but I don't think it's worth installing anything on that laptop.

Best Regards,
Georgi

[MajorJalepino]

Thanks for the reply,

I'm not willing to use this laptop as any sort of workstation, I know that Gentoo on this thing will be slow. It's more of an exercise in whether I can do this rather than should.

I've researched memmap but I can't really find out how to set that parameter with the grub commandline, I know you could do it in grub.d but I would have to make my own .iso to do that with a CD-R, no?

[NeddySeagoon]

MajorJalepino,

With only 512MB RAM, there is a lot of things won't build. The first one you will encounter is gcc, whicn is what builds everything else.

There is/was the badram patch. I don't know if it ever made it into the kernel.
There is a explanation of kernel command line parameters see the

[MajorJalepino]

Alright thanks for the tip Neddy,

I've looked through the README file on the .iso that lists a specific set of kernel parameters that are able to be set for the particular kernel on the liveCD, does not look like memmap is one of them. And when I try to set it, the kernel refuses to boot. Setting memmap like this:

[NeddySeagoon]

MajorJalepino

Parameters on the kernel command line will be found in /proc/cmdline once the kernel has loaded.
Anything there that the kernel does not understand is ignored, on the basis that its for something else, like the initrd.
Hence

[sMueggli]

You can use single quotes to avoid expanding of variables:

[MajorJalepino]

Thanks sMueggi,

The problem I have is that this is the LiveCD's kernel, on an actual CD-R not USB. So as far as I know I cannot edit the grub.cfg.

I've tried setting the memmap kernel parameter from the Grub menu, but it prevents the kernel from booting.

I've set it with

[NeddySeagoon]

MajorJalepino,

When the grub menu appears, make your selection then press 'e' for edit, not enter to boot.
Go to the line that starts kernel and append whatever you need to the end, then allow the boot to continue.
There are on screen instructions,

This is a one time thing. Only the kernel line in RAM is changed.
As you say, you cannot change the CD copy.

If you make a mess of it, you can always have another go.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[MajorJalepino]

Hi again,

Neddy, I tried setting that parameter with the grub 'e' menu and got kernel panics when memory mapping. Nonetheless, I have isolated a bad ram stick after testing it by itself in memtest and it failed almost every test.

I've tried to set these kernel parameters also to no avail:

ide=nodma
doscsi
acpi=off (disables network controller I found out)
doapm

I'm now down to 256mb (another stick on the way).

The problem still persists - I cannot run mkfs.ext4 command without freezing the system.

Latest dmesg, no kernel parameters set by me here, just standard LiveCD: http://dpaste.com/2CL3CMG6R

[MajorJalepino]

Hi again,

Continuously tinkering I have discovered that I can format this drive as vfat or fat32.

Keeping in mind that this is an IDE drive, the storage medium is just solid-state.

Is there any historical reason why an IDE drive cannot be formatted to EXT4 or XFS, as per the handbook?

Thanks.

[NeddySeagoon]

MajorJalepino,

Exactly what command do you run to freeze the system?

Can you run

[MajorJalepino]

This thread can be closed, I have discovered the adapter board in the drive converting the SATA SSD to the PATA interface is not compatible with the IBM R30, which is bizarre but the original eBay listing specifically excludes it as compatible.