HELP !

Twice I have installed Linux via the SLS disk set, and I encounter the
same problem. Linux has a problem reading from my hard drive. The first
time, I got this "harddisk I/O error" while manually installing (via tar)
the files on the c1-c4 series of disks. (see error description below.)
This was with two DOS partitions, and one Linux partition. So I scrapped
the whole thing and started from scratch, using two Linux partitions, and
a swap partition hidden under the DOS extended partition. (see below)

This time I used the install under the "menu" interface, after doing the
appropriate "mkfs" and "mkswap", and "doinstall /dev/hda3 /dev/hda4 /usr".
This time it allowed me to copy all 22 disks (a,b,c and x) of 98p5 without
any trouble other than the usual (and previously discussed) "*.tar" not 
found" and "..could not create symlink to usr/386/bin".

Silly me, I thought all was well, and thought I'd better double check with
fsck. /hda3 is OK, but /hda4 is BAD news. (See below for fsck output)

Unfortunately I can't do anything (ie setup TeX, X11, TCP/IP stuff) until
I can solve this nonsense. However Linux looks like it will be a good
package, and I am looking forward to shedding DOS.

What follows is some system information, and output from various (possibly)
important programs.

***********************************************************************

System: 486-33 with 8MB of RAM (80ns)
        Phoenix BIOS A486, v1.01 c1990.
                BIOS IP FS105101  IT 9010, Reference ID 05
                BIOS inbuilt diskcache                          
        WD 210MB Hard Disk (12-15ms)
        32k Diskcache, 1:1 interleave controller.
        1MB Tseng VGA (1024x768)

I have disabled the BIOS diskcache, but still the same problem occcurs.

--This is the output from fdisk (print option)

Disk /dev/hda: 12 heads, 35 sectors, 987 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 420 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot  Begin   Start     End  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *       1       1     244   51222+   6  DOS 16-bit >=32M
/dev/hda2         245     245     459   45150    5  Extended
/dev/hda3         460     460     771   65520   81  Linux/MINIX
/dev/hda4         772     772     987   45360   81  Linux/MINIX
/dev/hda5         245     245     420   36942+   6  DOS 16-bit >=32M
/dev/hda6         421     421     459    8172+  82  Linux swap

--This is the output from "df -i"

Filesystem            Inodes   IUsed   IFree  %IUsed Mounted on
/dev/hda3              21840     394   21446     2%  /
/dev/hda4              15120    2713   12407    18%  /usr
/dev/hda1                  0       0       0     0%  /dos

--This is the output from "fsck -av /dev/hda3"

  393 inodes used (1%)
  5600 zones used (8%)

   207 regular files
    27 directories
    59 character device files
    88 block device files
     4 links
    11 symbolic links
======
   397 files

--Here is what happens when I run "fsck -av /dev/hda4"

(This is printed on the screen via stderr.)

HD: read_intr: status = 0x59
HD: read_intr: error = 0x40

<...above repeated about 50 times, with the occasional...>

HD-controller reset     <...this one is no surprise, but still annoying>

<...and the occasional...>

harddisk I/O error
dev 0304, sector 676

<...and finally fsck finishes with the following: >

fsck: Unable to reach inodes

< "fsck -l /dev/hda4" produces identical output. >

But its not like hda4 is entirely fried, because an "ls -al /usr" works fine, 
and all the binaries in /usr/bin work OK. Arrgh !!!!

By the way, a man page for fsck would be nice. Fortunately I was able to 
(coincidentally) find a description of the switches in a man page for the
alpha release of efsck.

        Thanks in advance for the help.
                                                        Paul G.