[ydl-gen] [YDL5] Install DVD won't boot (bad media?) and related questions
Jon "NeoAmsterdam" Levy
YellowDog at neoamsterdam.net
Thu Apr 12 15:02:42 MDT 2007
Hello! I bought a print of YDL 5 as soon as it became available from
the store and it arrived a few hours ago. When I opened up the DVD
case and took out the Install DVD, I noticed that the underside of
the medium was DVD-dye-blue. It looked as if it had been burnt by
someone at home, and not the usual silver underside as if it had been
pressed at a printing facility.
I didn't pay it much attention at the time - I was overcome with
enthusiasm as I held down the "C" key at startup. But the install
DVD didn't boot. In fact, when my PowerBook (15" G4 867MHz) finished
its startup routine(s), I didn't even see the YDL 5 DVD on the Desktop.
I figured that the Mac OS didn't recognize the filesystem (which
would have explained why it didn't show up) and that it was possible
that I didn't press "C" soon enough. So, I restarted and tried again
but only to result in the same. I tried holding down the Option key
to see if my Mac was even recognizing that the DVD was in the drive,
but it did not show up in the list of discovered devices. I was even
bold/crazy enough to drop into OpenFirmware and try `cd:,\\tbxi` -
Same result.
I figured that maybe my internal combo drive was out of whack (it's
seen better days), and I'd try using an external DVD drive connected
on the FireWire port. Maybe the PowerBook didn't like booting up
from an external device, but whatever the reason, that didn't work
either. So I decided to try to boot my G5 Quad from the YDL 5 DVD
and install to the PowerBook while in target-disk mode. Again, the
Quad dropped into Mac OS X and the DVD was nowhere on the Desktop.
Finally, hoping that my intuition was wrong, I tried to boot the Quad
from the DVD without any external devices present.
If that had worked, I wouldn't be writing this email.
I suspect that I have a bad print of the YDL 5 Install DVD (The
sources' DVD mounts properly, though). I used `pdisk` on OS X to
determine the location of the Install DVD, and came across the
following:
Top level command (? for help): L
pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk1' (Permission denied)
pdisk: can't open file '/dev/rdisk0' (Permission denied)
Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/rdisk2'
#: type name length base ( size )
1: Apple_partition_map Apple 2 @ 1
2: Apple_HFS PBOOT 7609424 @ 16 ( 3.6G)
Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=7609440 (3.6G)
DeviceType=0x1, DeviceId=0x1
With the disk number and slice number of YDL's installation
partition, I ran `md5 /dev/disk2s2` to verify the checksum. It
returned an `input/output error`. Even if it had worked, I cannot
locate YDL 5's ISO MD5 for Apple Macintosh (the Sony Playstation MD5
was easily found at the Argonne National Labs's Yellow Dog mirror).
My intuition tells me that I probably have a bad media. I hope not
because bought the DVD from the YDL store *specifically* because I
wanted to avoid having bad burns (I also wanted to go around the
office with that nice, big, "I'm on the cutting-edge and you have to
wait another two weeks to download the ISO from the mirrors you bunch
of freeloaders" smirk). So, I have a few questions...
(1) What is the MD5 correct for the "PBOOT" partition?
(2) Could the short length of the Apple partition map affect booting
from the DVD?
(3) Are the YDL 5 prints' undersides supposed to be blue?
(4) Is it possible to launch the YDL 5 installer from within YDL 4?
(Note: I know the answer will most likely be that I have to boot with
YDL 5 to install it, but I'm asking anyway)
(5) Did I just waste $49.95 (plus shipping) on a coaster? (Note: If
so, it'll be used to "coast" my YDL coffee mug) And...
(6) How can I be absolutely sure that the media is bad, and what can
I do about getting a replacement?, and...
Thanks in advance for any enlightenment that you can shed on this
situation.
- NeoAmsterdam
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