Losing CD in middle of install

[sochs]

I am trying to install Suse Linux v7.0 (minimal installation) on my old 486 machine. It has 8 MB ram, a VLB Tekram DC-280E EIDE controller with a 800+ MB harddrive as master and a 212 MB harddrive as slave on IDE0. My CD-ROM is on IDE1. The CD appears to be detected but midway through the install, I get an error and the CD is no longer detected. I tried all the recommended bios settings for troubleshooting with no luck. If anyone has any suggestions for how to configure my hardware or alternative kernal drivers I would appreciate it.

[Choozo]

I think this is a common problem on boxes with not even half the RAM recommended. The installer just runs out of memory (in a weird way), and just dies on you.

I don't know if you are using the graphical installer or textbased (Yast2?), but would recommend the textbased. Another thing is running X (window managers, etc.). Don't know if there are any that will run even remotely smooth on just 8 megs of RAM?

[diskman]

You need a minimum of 16 mb RAM to install SuSE in either graphical or even text mode. I tried that before and there is not enough memory to load the kernel/modules/install ramdisk with less than 8 megs.

Looks like it's time to buy some cheapo 72 pin Simms.

[sochs]

Thanks for the help. I kept thinking it was an EIDE problem but I wondered about the memory since the box said "minimum 16 MB RAM". I'll look around for more memory or wait to upgrade my Win98 machine so I can install onto it.

[Maskra]

Ok so if it makes you feel better I just lost my CD period. no power to it. not even the bios recognizes it. :(

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by sochs:
I'll look around for more memory

check the hardware trading forum, peoples have old memory there sometimes. i might be posting some 72 pin simms (4mb) there next week, if i have time to check them out.