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Date:	Mon, 3 Apr 2006 12:42:47 PST8
From:	J R FOX <jr_fox@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	< "scoug-help@scoug.com" > scoug-help@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: a couple decent installs, at last (!)

Content Type: text/plain

[long-ish post]

Couldn't make the Help Desk yesterday, but it was a
pretty good weekend nonetheless. Using another
fresh-out-of-the-box HDD, I completed a base install
of eCS 1.2R, and another base install of the 2.0 Beta.
(The latter did not have that difference file applied
to the ISO, so I hope it wasn't needed.) By "base
install" I mean: non-migration install, to a bare
drive rather than a complex pre-partitioned
environment, Easy rather than Advanced install, and no
further customization of the installed OS, as yet.
These installs do have the intended partition drive
letters, but this is *not* their ultimate
destinations. Rather, they are intended as baselines,
and reuseable templates. I have now imaged the
results with DFSEE, plus saved some key files
separately for reference, such as Config.Sys and the
INSTLOG.Zip.

Things went fairly smoothly this time. I did not use
PM8 or DFSEE for any partitioning, but let the
installer do it all. No 'Partition Table is Corrupt'
messages, No 2G partition with 500M worth of files
after the install but only 44M of free space
remaining. (And I never did account for that one.)
The 1.2R installer did hang at the Startup.Cmd window
in Phase 3 (GuidProc.Exe ... EIENDPH3.GPS), but I
rebooted with C-A-D and the installation did go
through to completion, unlike a couple other times in
past install attempts.

I did get this anomaly on the 1.2R install, as
reported by DFSEE, which I _have_ seen before. But
I'm hoping it relates to just one file, and may not be
terribly consequential (?).

----------------------------------------------
Display sector table in verbose format.
err-mask
Used 18876 of 844678 at 0 show:
Errors matching: FFFFFFFF
SectorNr Reference LSN info Size of area
Containing
======== ================== =================
==========
00000011 Ref: none 000001 = 0.5 KiB :
HPFS spareblock 00000100
- Incorrect checksum value
000572F3 Ref: 001F69E0 000001 = 0.5 KiB :
File Fnode 00000020
LSN info: f 100% 572F4 1.0 KiB
\OS2\SYSTEM\RAS\ERRSAV.DAT
- Filesize in Fnode smaller than in
dir-entry

Total errors/warnings detected: 2
------------------------------------------------

Now, some observations:

Tony may or may not be right about the Cold Boot ==>
Install thing, but it costs you nothing to do this.
Couldn't hurt.

Ray is probably right that the fragile eCS installer
is least likely to slip on a banana peel if it
installs to a fresh drive with nothing else on it.
This certainly seems to avoid the hang at the JFS.IFS
line. I think the AUTOCHK * barfs if you have NTFS
(or maybe some other types of) partitions on the
drive. And what can happen with the installer AFTER
THAT isn't pretty.

I'm kinda skeptical re the comment I think Steven made
at the last meeting, which seemed to suggest that a
bare drive right out of the box has some nasty MS code
already on it that we aren't taking into account.
Still, just in case, I did a NEWMBR on the drive
before starting.

Don't know if they did anything to it in the interim,
but the installer seemed to work more surely in the
2.0 Beta. That was my impression, anyway.
Eliminating one of the install phases looks like a
good move.

2.0b is said to be missing some things that were in
1.2R. In 1.1 or 1.2GA, I have to jiggle a memory
stick around in the slot and hit "Refresh Removeable
Media" *twice* before the flash drive gets picked up
and the drive letter assigned. This is *not* a H/W
thing: W2K has no such issue. There is some new item
in 1.2R that picks up the memory stick right away,
showing an alert box, more in the manner of the Dark
Side (although it still requires some jiggling in the
USB slot before the light goes ON). But this USB
enhancement does not seem to be present in 2.0b.

Steven, I think you are incorrect in saying that the
Dark Side installer can't cope too well with multiple
existing partitions / OSes on the HDD *either*. I
have done that a few times, successfully, though not
with a partition enviroment that is quite as complex
as what is now on the Shuttle HDD.

Next up: Migration installs vs. the UniMaint Portable
Backup that either does or doesn't work (we shall
see). Whatever turns out best, my goal is to drop it
into place on the production HDD.

Jordan

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