[9fans] New venti install won't boot after 05:00 crash

[quanstro@quanstro.net (erik quanstrom)]

> erik quanstrom <quanstro at labs.coraid.com> writes:
> 
> > try a write test.  also, you may want to check out how venti/fossil
> > have repartitioned their play areas.  i believe i've seen them mess
> > up the size calculations.
> 
> I wiped the entire Plan 9 partition with "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda3",
> which completed without any errors.  I then booted the install CD and
> reinstalled.  (I'm getting pretty good at that ;) On the first boot, I
> let it sit unmolested.  When the system load trailed off, the screen
> began filling with write errors, and the filesystem hung, just like the
> previous two install attempts.

i have a very hard time believing that this can be
explained by a hardware problem.  i've seen a lot of
crazy disk behavior, but i have not seen lbas that
are writable only by dd, and not by other programs. :-)

i think this is our menu of believable options:

1.  ide driver problem
2.  venti problem
3.  fossil problem

the most likely problem is that venti, fossil or both
are writing outside their alloted partitions.  the 64-bit
question is, which partitions.  if the partition sizes you've
got don't look silly, it may be hard to track this down.

the easiest thing to do might be to try a fossil-only install.
it's not ideal, but maybe it's worth a shot.

- erik