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

[smiley@zenzebra.mv.com (smiley at zenzebra.mv.com)]

rod at hemiola.co.uk writes:

> I have seen similar symptoms. In the end, I narrowed my problems down
> to a very particular combination of hard drive and laptop. 

Interesting.  The system that's misbehaving is a laptop, as well.  Its
specs:

IBM ThinkPad T23
ATA ST94813A, 78140160 * 512 byte sectors

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82830 830 Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 42)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801CAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801CAM IDE U100 Controller (rev 02)

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.

Here's a pastebin to a full transcript of the install:

http://pastebin.com/cXpegrhH

Details of the venti layout are in the transcript.

Here are the console messages displayed by the installer:

Fri Mar 18 21:11:24 Installation process started
% fossil/fossil -c . /env/fossilconf
prompt: % mount -c /srv/fossil /n/newfs
fsys main create /active/adm adm sys d775
prompt: fsys main create /active/adm/users adm sys 664
prompt: uname upas :upas
prompt: users -w
	nuser 6 len 96
prompt: fsys main create /active/dist sys sys d775
prompt: fsys main create /active/dist/replica sys sys d775
prompt: fsys main create /active/dist/replica/client sys sys d775
prompt: fsys main create /active/dist/replica/client/plan9.db sys sys 664
prompt: fsys main create /active/dist/replica/client/plan9.log sys sys a664
prompt: % 9660srv
% mount /srv/9660 /n/distmedia /dev/sdD0/data
Initializing Plan 9 FAT partition.
% cp /n/newfs/386/9load /n/9fat/9load
% cp /n/newfs/386/9pcf /n/9fat/9pcf
Setting Plan 9 partition active.

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