Fwd: Debian Hurd Installer problems

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hello,

I'm forwarding my earlier email to help-hurd and debian-hurd as my
original email to bug-hurd never seems to have arrived…

Further to the information below, I have now also noticed, during the
initial start of the debian installer that there is an error message:
/dev/console: permission denied
Which seems to fit with the problems I have accessing /dev/ described in
my email below.

I can also now say that the failure in the installation process likely
correlates to the following error message in /var/log/syslog:
Jan 30 17:27:09 main-menu[1276]: INFO Menu item 'console-setup-udeb'
selected
Jan 30 17:27:10 main-menu[1276]: (process:1742): cat: can't open
'/var/run/hurd-console.pid': No such file or directory
Jan 30 17:27:10 main-menu[1276]: WARNING **: Configuring
'console-setup-udeb' failed with error code 1

Hopefully this additional information, along with my original email
below will help to discover what's going on here.

Best wishes,

Alex

PS: I've completed Gnome Disk-Utility most exhaustive disk check on the
hard drive and no serious issues were found (just the few bad sectors
mentioned below).

Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I'm trying to install the Hurd on an old i386 laptop I have at home. I'm
> for now using the Debian installer (7 Jan release, CD 1), and run into
> the following problem:
> - Text Install proceeds until Keyboard setup. This step, upon selecting
> the layout, consistently fails. 
> - Proceeding onto the next step, mounting the CD-Rom, I get the
> following error:
>
> hd0: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
> hd0: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete }
> hd0: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
> ide0: reset: success
> hd0: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete }
> hd0: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete }
> hd0: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete }
> hd0: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
> ide0: reset: success
> hd0: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete }
> end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00, sector 2
>
> - Alternatively, when I execute a shell from within the installer the
>   shell launches, but no /target directory exists (not at root, nor at
>   /media/target or at /mnt/target). When I do
> $ ls /dev/ 
> I get the same error as above.
>
> I guess there is some problem accessing the hard drive, which still
> works though has one or two bad sectors — I'm running some tests on it
> now.
>
> Could there be anything I could look at to resolve this issue? Or can I
> provide any other information that might help clarify whether this is a
> bug somewhere?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Alex