Do I have hardware failure, or is there something I'm missing?
Posts: 1
OK, here's the deal. A buddy of mine just gave me a Compaq iPAQ desktop. I've wanted to do a NES casemod for quite some time now, and since the motherboard on this thing isn't all that big, I thought I might give it a try.
Booted up the first time and it had Win 2000 installed. Not a big fan of Windows, and the wife talked me into trying Mepis.
Before anything else, the system specs are in the ballpark of this:
Celeron 500 mhz
4 gig hd
128 megs ram
Intel 810 vid chip
Now, I tried to install mepis with the hd connected, but it would get so far in the install and die. Usually when trying to mount. Before I go much further, I should say that I'm far from skilled when it comes to Linux. I can do some very rudementary basics, but I don't know lingo and I don't know how to use the console or anything like that. I just picked up a couple of things cause my wife's a bit of a linux freak. Coarse, she couldn't help me with this, so that's why I'm here.
Ok, now onto other stuff. So I pulled the hd and put it in another computer, installed mepis, and put the hd back into the original chassis.
Boot it up and first it says that it doesn't recognize something graphically (from what I understand) and it gives me a 0-9 prompt. I've messed with every one and the same thing happens every time. I get this.
[17179575.304000] hda: drive not ready for command
[17179575.352000] hda: drive not ready for command
[17179575.400000] Buffer I/O error on device hda, logical block 2441406
[17179575.400000] Buffer I/O error on device hda, logical block 2441406
[17179575.524000] EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
[17179575.524000] Buffer I/O error and device hda1, logical block 0
[17179575.524000] Buffer I/O error and device hda1, logical block 1
[17179575.524000] Buffer I/O error and device hda1, logical block 2
[17179575.524000] Buffer I/O error and device hda1, logical block 3
[17179575.528000] Buffer I/O error and device hda1, logical block 0
[17179575.528000] Buffer I/O error and device hda1, logical block 1
[17179575.528000] Buffer I/O error and device hda1, logical block 2
[17179575.528000] Buffer I/O error and device hda1, logical block 3
[17179575.528000] SQUASHFS error: sb_bread failed reading block 0x0
[17179575.528000] FAT: unable to read boot sector
[17179575.528000] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-blcok(3,1)
[17179575.528000]
I should also mentioned that I've tried other distros and the whole nine yards. I've had no luck with this. I've also swapped the memory with no luck. Any advice besides throwing this out? I'd really like to make it work. Thanks.
ipaq
Posts: 613
A bios update will not help.
With your current configuration, Mepis is expecting to 'see' the hardware from the other machine. Mepis needs to be installed directly on the ipaq before it will work.
For the sake of usability, you may want to try mepis-lite. It will better fit your hardware.
Edit: You will likely need a slightly larger hard drive as well.
You can get a BIOS update
Posts: 516
You can get a BIOS update from here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/swPfinder?query=iPAQ+&tool=softwareCategory&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en , if that don't work you can try an older version of MEPIS that has the 2.4 kernel. http://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/3.3.1/ http://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/3.3.2/
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MEPIS Help Files: http://www.mepis.org/docs/index.php/Main_Page
INTEL P-IV/HT 3.0GHz - 2X256 DDR3200 - SimplyMEPIS 6.0-1
KDE 3.5.4 - kernel 2.6.15-27-686-SMP - My iMAC runs De