another hard drive failure story

[edwardp-KK0ffGbhmjU at public.gmane.org]

While attempting to install Linux on a Compaq Presario that is now 10 
years old, the installation CD for the current and prior releases, 
displayed various I/O errors during the install process and resulted in 
some packages being installed, but no bootloader. 

Strangely enough, if I used the installation CD for the same Linux 
release going back three versions, that particular release installed 
fine and was then able to do an online upgrade to the "prior" version 
mentioned above, as the "current" version did not run as expected, the 
login was set to auto-login, yet it began to prompt for a password after 
so many reboots, despite the settings to the contrary.

Reading the issue that Seth had, this made me wonder if perhaps the 
ribbon cables running between the motherboard and CD/DVD drives might be 
bad.  But then, why would the current and prior releases display I/O 
errors on those installs, but the third release back installed fine...



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