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Tech Docs 006
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Background :
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I inherited a
computer from my Grandfather who sadly died just
before Christmas. This is a story of what
happened to it. |
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Fred's Computer |
Fred loved anything
technical and computers were no exception, he
bought himself a little Compaq from a
second-hand computer shop down the road. The
computer was as you'd expect - Monitor, 2button
mouse, 101-keyboard, modem, onboard LAN.
It shows it's age
a little with a tiny 32Mb memory and a small
1.5Gb hard disk.
Fred had been
writing his memoirs on the machine so I was
entrusted with having a tip-toe round it and
sending on anything of importance. Actually I
dint want to lose anything so I used Norton
Ghost to burn an image onto CD and then
extracted onto another machine somewhere else
this meant that it didn't matter at all what
happened to the actual hardware as the content
was all safely backed up in a couple of other
places. |
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The Plan
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I've got quite a few
windows machine kicking about, W95, W98 and 2K
(don't get me started on XP) so I thought that
having a little PC tucked up the corner with
Linux on was probably going to be useful. I
ain't had a lot to do with Linux and I thought I
better find out a bit about it. I thought that
an older machine would be fine because Linux
should sit on it lovely. For no particular
reason I obtained a copy of SuSE Linux 8.1
Professional. |
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Start
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So I slapped the SuSE
Linux install disk into the drive and off we
went. YaST2 loaded up and went into auto install
- lovely. Well no, not really. It all started
going horribly wrong.
YaST2 got a couple
of screens down it's script to a bit where it
said something about 'Kernel Panic : VFS :
Unable to mount root fs on 03:02'. "Oh gawd" I
thought - as I suddenly remembered the number of
times that I had been told that Linux was a
bitch to install (one of the reasons I'd gone
for Suse was it's 'easy installation'. |
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So, being a
programmer, I got me screwdriver out. |
I kinda had a feeling
that it was either the limited memory or the
hard disk that was causing YaST2 to hang. I had
an old Seagate 8Gb as a third drive in another
machine and I thought that would be perfect to
donate into the Compaq. So I swapped it in and
started the Compaq. This is when things started
to get really fun. |
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1790 - Disk 0 error |
POST (Power on Self
Test) decided that it was going to add to the
fun by playing up. Okay, the two things to
remember here is that firstly I've never really
liked Compaq's since I got heavily bitten in the
80's with a memory swapping problem... 98% PC
Compatible my arse - trust me to find the 2%
then huh, and the second thing is that except a
bit of Unix I played with on a Microsystems Sun
years ago I aint really got an idea what I am
doing with Unix type OS', being a devout Windows
user since version 2.
I started by doing
some searches on the error. A lot of references
pointed into the Compaq support database so I
thought I'd click on them. This was worse than
useless since Compaq and HP have now joined up
and Compaq has exported all of their knowledge
bases into the HP domain so links from a search
engine are mostly dead links. I signed on for
the HP support forums but all searches resulted
in nothing. This is because, even as a default
HP doesn't select an area to search in - so you
are searching for whatever you want but not in
any areas. Remember to tick an area to target
your search ! I gave up in there really for a
bit |
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1790 - Disk 0 error
still ongoing |
By about 3 different
routes I found out the following :
Compaq require
some Seagate Drives to have a Firmware Update
Compaqs require a BIOS update for drives bigger
than 8GB
Compaqs have no BIOS front end in BIOS - it runs
from a non-DOS partition, pressing F10 at
startup. |
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Right I thought, A
BIOS front end is going to be useful... |
In the Compaq
programs and drivers section they do genuinely
seem to be trying to help. With download
programs for making boot disks to install the
BIOS front end into a partition on the hard
disk. I downloaded the program - found a couple
of disks and made them up.
But the Compaq
wouldn't bloody boot off them - I couldn't work
it out. So I left that a bit |
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Seagate Firmware
Update |
This was about the
first thing that seemed to work - GREAT - I made
the disk up, booted the Compaq from it and it
RAN - this was the first time since picking up
me screwdriver that something seemed to be going
in the right direction. The disk flashed through
it's script but at every juncture said that
either there was no disk found on that IDE
channel or the disk found did not need it's
firmware updating. Bugger - the first thing that
works don't need to do anything ! |
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Pull the jumper |
At this point in my
online investigations I found a bulletin board
and someone recommended pulling the BIOS battery
jumper (it's right next to the battery) so I did
that and it still didn't help. At this point I'm
still getting the 1790 - Disk 0 error. |
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Swap the disk back |
I put the original
1.5Mb hard disk back into the machine and was
pissed off to discover that I was getting the
1790 - Disk 0 error on that drive now. Oh
fux0red. |
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I put the Seagate
back into it's original machine |
Deleted all
partitions and formatted it to be one partition
- all nice and clean. I pulled the jumper from
the BIOS battery. and turned things on. THE
ERROR MESSAGE HAD GONE. I really gotta say this
must have been a combination of the BIOS
upgrade, the BIOS reset and formatting the disk
down to on partition. but GREAT, I'd got over
that hurdle. I still hadn't got a BIOS front end
but fuck it I dint need it now (NOTE: Later I
discovered that the reason the F10 disks
wouldn't boot was because I was creating them on
a W2K machine - I guess (but haven't tested)
that creating them on a W9x machine would have
worked). |
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So Linux install here
we go !! |
Well, no - not
really. It's a bit fuzzy here cos I was starting
to lose it a bit. YaST2 first decided that it
couldn't create or move the windows partitions.
Screwdriver again I swapped the Seagate back
into it's original machine and used FDisk to
split it into a primary partition and a logical
partition on a 60/40 roughly split. My thinking
was that this would give YaST2 a foot in the
door whatever it was trying to do. |
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The Seagate went back
into the Compaq |
And we ran the SuSE
disk again GREAT!! we seemed to be getting
somewhere... We got past the script line we'd
been hanging on before then CLUNK 'Insufficient
Memory' errors. Oh bugger. The Compaq had 32Mb
in it - LOL - I know that the SuSE box said 64Mb
min but you know - it's always worth a try. But
I seemed stuck. A net search showed someone that
had the same problem and the kind respondent had
mostly said 'you're screwed - didn't you read
the box ?' - not very helpful.
A Compaq Deskpro has 8 memory slots - In this
on, each slot had a 4Mb slab in it.... OUCH -
fully populated and not enough memory ! - I
looked in all my dead machines and managed to
scrape a set of 8 slabs together, matched in
pairs (it's bloody EDO ain't it) that totalled
about 50Mb. Right - Still not enough.
I restarted a
couple of time and got to the same 'Not Enough
Memory, Yast2 needs 64Mb' - it was giving an
option of using some swap space but I don't
understand all that \dev\hd notation and anyway
I didn't want to upset the hard disk as it had
taken hours to get it working !
On the YaST2 front
screen was an option for a 'Manual Install',
I'll give it a go.
Turns out that the
memory limit only seems applicable to the
graphical front ended installation. Yes the
manual one is a bit harder to do (you have to
press <enter> a couple of times!!) but it seemed
to created a swap volume and then proceeded to
use it successfully) |
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But the hard disk is
hanging out the front ? |
Yeah, On a Compaq the
chassis has a slide out front box with the hard
disk, floppy disk and CD bays. I'd been
carefully trying to slide it forward to screw
the new hard disk in but it had been fouling
when it was about an inch out. Swapping the
memory I'd got a bit frustrated and levered it
with me programmers screwdriver and it had come
okay - but I wasn't going to screw anything in
until it worked. So once the CD's have all been
through I'll put it back together properly and
make the desk look tidy.
Also, the bloody
chassis screws are star drive so me normal
programmers screwdriver wasn't the best tool to
be using. But it worked just. |
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!!!!! Success !!!!! |
It just kicked the
KDE desktop onto the screen and I just signed
in - best screw all the chassis back together
then - lol. |
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SuSE is running
pretty good, but the screen is only running at
16 colour and there seems to be an inordinate
amount of disk activity. Time to start gilding
the lily huh ;) |
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I looked in my parts
bin |
I was looking for
some more memory and a better graphics card. I'd
already been through looking for memory once and
didn't hold out much hope on that front but I
figured I must have a better graphics card. |
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I came up for air
with an Avance Logistics and an ATI
All-in-Wonder |
The Avance was really
the only thing that would have fitted as the ATI
was an AGP (The Deskpro hasn't got a slot to fit
it - I tried it one of the Compaq PCI slots but
it just made a funny noise and the monitor was
blank). Trouble with the Avance is I know how
hard it was to get drivers for windows to run
it, but you just know after everything Linux
just ain't gonna want to know. Time to spend
money |
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It was Sunday. So I
turned the Deskpro off for a while as it was
gonna be a couple of days before things got
sorted out. |
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Memory |
I ordered 128Mb of
EDO from
www.crucial.com/uk. I went for the max slab
size which meant I was getting 128Mb in 4 slabs
- this would leave 4 slots free for the largest
slabs I already had in it to stay in |
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Video |
I ordered a S3 Savage
4LT from
http://www.dabs.co.uk |
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Memory First |
The memory arrived on
Monday!! - ordered on Sunday, arrived on Monday.
Only problem was that there was no one in to
sign for it so it meant an evening trip into
town to pick it up from the sorting office.
Four loverly slabs
of EDO |
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Video Second |
The new Video adapter
turned up a couple of days later. |
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So, time to lift the
lid again ! |
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I took out all the
smaller memory slabs and put in the 4 slabs of
the 128Mb, and I slotted in the video card -
putting the card in was a little tricky for two
reasons. The first is that taking the blanking
plate out was a bitch because the screw was one
of the funny star-drive ones, and secondly the
PCI slots are on a perpendicular riser card and
the PCI slot I wanted to use was obscured by a
case cross brace. But a bit of gentle floating
and some quite forceful swearing got it to fit. |
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Restart |
I left the monitor
plugged into the onboard video controller and
restarted with the Compaq diagnostic disk in. I
was looking to disable the onboard VGA, as you
would think would need doing. The diagnostic
recognised that there was a PCI VGA controller
as well as the onboard controller - but I
couldn't find a way of disabling the onboard. |
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Restart |
I plugged the monitor
into the PCI card, put the Linux install disk in
and restarted. I was thinking that in the long
run a clean install of Linux was probably best
as I didn't want any dead drivers lying about
(like what happens in windows). YaST2 started up
and immediately opted for the 1024x768
resolution at 75Hz refresh. Top Notch. I let it
do it's thing (and it did). |
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After YaST2 finished
the machine rebooted |
Oh bugger, all I got
was a very pretty back-drop with a Linux Login
command prompt in a window in the middle. hmmm -
no idea really. |
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Graphics Fun |
I remembered that in
the installation there's a bit where it asks
about Graphics setup - I thought that was the
place I needed to be, So I ran the install again
but paid more attention at that bit. YaST2
Auto-sensed both the onboard VGA and the PCI VGA
and was opting to run the PCI one at
1024x768@75Hz, the monitor is really really old
so I guessed that this was all a bit too much
for it.
I removed the
onboard VGA from the setup and set the PCI Video
Controller to 800x600@75Hz. |
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Success !! |
When everything
restarted, the Graphics card ran at 800x600 and
GRUB (the boot program - I think) managed to
kick eveything into the KDE, now I've got:
Compaq Deskpro
4000 (not sure which exact model)
P1 100
150 MB Ram (ish)
8Gb Seagate Hard Disk
8MB D3D compat. VGA @ 800x600
15" Monitor @ 75Hz
Running
SuSE 8.1 Professional
And pretty chuffed with myself I am too |
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Next..... |
Evergreen have just
reduced the price of their Spectra 400 from
$179.00 to about $80.00 or something but I might
have a rest for a bit before attempting that
next...
Okay, I did it -
read on here. |
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