Hi All,

New to this site, so Hello 👋
I'm trying to install either AROSOne or Icaros on an old All in One PC that seems to meet all the specs required. Can load from DVD great (sound and picture all good - can navigate around and open things etc) and I get part way through the install (probably 80%) and then it runs in issues with the HDD - errorcode -6. I'm using Sata disks and setting the partition sizes correctly. If it didn't work at all I'd think it does not like the disks. I though it might be a bad section on the disk I've now tried multiple different disks with similar errors. Any ideas?

With which tool are you creating the partitions?

You should use InstallAROS which creates partitions correctly!

Have you tried installing AROS One with the PenDrive Live?

Do not mix AROS One with Icaros, they are not currently compatible with each other, AROS One includes the new Core.

I used the installAROS to create the partitions. I'm not mixing the two systems - just trying to get one of them working at a time. I'm only trying both hoping that one will get further than the other - so far I did Icaros to be able to boot from a HDD but a lot of the install was missing as it ran into those HDD issues. I'm about to try AROSOne on a USB drive but really want to do a full native install on an internal HDD if possible.

Another image

Hi BBQ_Troy,
Firstly, welsome to the forum and sorry to hear you're having trouble installing. A few though't that I hope will help:

As Amigasystem mentioned it's better to stick with the AROSOne distribution as t's fully up to date (Icaros, whilst great a few years ago, hasn't been updated for some time).

Is your DVD drive connected via SATA like the HDD? If so that indicates AROS is fine for your SATA hardware so it should be possible to get the HDD working.

Have a look at your machine's BIOS options for the HDD contoller; if you can set the SATA contoller into ATA mode this may help.

You mentioned you have partitioned the HDD via InstallAROS; so long as you can see these on Wanderer (the desktop) when you boot from DVD and they are the correct size (click on he icon and select 'nformation' from the menus) that's a good step forwards. I presume these are formatted already? If not you can use system/format to format them. None of the particitons are over 120GB are they? That's the maximum size AROS currently supports.

You could try dropping the max transfer rate for the partitions:

- In the AROSOne distribution go to utilties/HDtoolbox.

- Click through to your AROS pratitions (pobabaly via driver name -> drive mechanism name -> PC-MBR partition table -> PCR-EBR partition table -> RDB partiion table).

- Select on a partition and click the DosEnvec button

- Decrease the MaxTransfer value and 'OK'.

- Click back through the levels (Parent button) until you can save the configuration.

I've found the above can cure HDD transfer issues.

If none of the above helps, try this:

- With the partitions created, from InstallAROS select install to existing partions, choose your HDD boot partiiton but just install the bootloader (deselect the Core system etc). Once done exit InstallAROS.

- Then iinstall the DVD files manually (just drag and drop from the DVD to the HDD or, in the shell, 'copy cd0: to hd0: all clone', assuming your DVD drive is alocated to CD0: ) If you've decided to have a 'Work' partion the files and drawers in 'Extras' go into that.

Really hope some of this helps, please post back if we can offer any further help,

Cheers,
Nigel

Hi Nigel,
Thanks for the detailed information - I will try it all out.
I will stick to just AROSOne - I like to look of it better too. I did swap to trying the AROSOne install to a usb and it was going well but after 2 hours and having to hit retry about 40 times (which did initially work) its failed again. Not sure what is going on.

Answers to your questions:
Is your DVD drive connected via SATA - Yes
machine's BIOS options for the HDD controller - no options available
can see these on Wanderer - Yes and they look fine. They were quick formatted by the "wipe" install option. However if I try to format via the system options (full, not quick) it has the same issues - throws that "errorcode -6"
None of the partitions are over 120GB - No. I've tried about 8 different HDD's (with and without jumper settings trying to limit their transfer speed). The one I've got furthest with is a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 80GB drive. I've even swapped the sata cable just in case that was causing issues.

Thanks again for your great response - I will get working on the suggestions.
Regards, Troy.

Hi Nigel,

I found the transfer rate but its not in a format that I know how to turn down. Current Max Transfer is 0x00200000 - what do I set it to?
Other setting on the same screen are BlockSIze = 512 and Buffers = 20.

Regards,

What you can also check is booting with noacpi and/or noioapic switches. If this is an interrupt issue, these two switches can help.

Hi Deadwood,

Sorry, you have lost me with that - I'm not familiar with these switches or where to locate them.

Regards,

When selecting boot option in grub, press 'e'. Go down to the end of the line that starts with 'multiboot' and add option 'noacpi' there. Press CTRL+X to continue booting.

Sorry if I misled you re. formatting - that would only be needed if the partitions hadn't been formatted in the previous step (they would not appear on Wanderer at all or appear as 'NDOS'. In general you almost never need a full low-level format (it takes a very long time to complete), just do a quick format. In any case you can open the partiiton and see it's empty (or some files from the prvious attempts) then they are fine.

The MaxTrabsfer setting is a hexadecimal number which sets how much data will be read or written in one go. There's no exact value to set here, but you could just try reducing it's value to see if that helps. For example, the machine I'm currently typing on was giving 'device in an invalid state' errors when reading large files, but now I've dropped the MaxTransfer for each particiton to 0x000fffff I have no more errors.

Of course, as mentioned above see if the noacpi or noioacpi settings fix the problem, but if not try lowering the MaxTransfer value and/or the install bootloader and then manual copy approach.

Cheers,
Nigel.

Thanks for all the advice and help. However, I'm not getting very far still.

I set the noacpi and max transfer speed - I worked out that even though the max transfer speed showed in Hex I could not put the Hex value in the field. I needed to work out the decimal value (1048575) and put that in and it did the conversion for me (when I went back in it showed 0x000fffff). I then ran the install and got fully through it but did get about 60 'device in an invalid state' errors but the retry option work on all but one German language file but as I don't read, write or speak German no big deal. So I might have a fully installed HDD but I can't seem to boot from it - no matter what I set in BIOS when it starts AROS says its waiting for bootable media. I can only seem to boot from CD.
I'm also concerned that I will continue to get 'device in an invalid state' errors during normal use and not sure if I should set the max transfer speed even lower and if that will destroy what's already installed or not. Needless to say but I'm very frustrated and wondering if I should just give up but I don't want to do that really. Any advice on what I should do would be appreciated.
Regards, Troy.

If all these actions failed, it simply means that there is some sort of incompatibility between your hardware and AROS chipset drivers. One last thing you could try is to take clean AROS ISO release (not distribution) and boot the last option (VGA graphics, safe mode). This will be ugly but you only need to run one test:

1) Select Info on disk icon -> it should be reading 'Connected on ata.device'
2) Do a full format of that disk. If you get errors during full format (like you mentioned in #6) then there is no point of furter testing. Your hardware is not compatible in some way with AROS chipset drivers.

In such you can you either enjoy AROS in a virtual machine or buy one of the recommended hardware listed here: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/Platforms/x86_Complete_System_HCL#Recommended_hardware

I suppose one further option if the SATA does prove to be incompatable but USB works and you can boot from USB is to put AROS onto a USB stick or external drive and work from that. It's not a quick as SATA but it is quicker than DVD.

Cheers,
Nigel.

P.S. Changing the MaxTrasfer value does not damage any data on the disk so you can experiment with this without having to do a reinstall every time.

P.P.S. If you boot from CD and manually copy files (i.e. drag and drop) from the CD to HDD, does this still produce the errors?

Hi Nigel and Deadwood,

I'm hoping not to have to give up on this hardware as it a really nice set up and seems to meet the required specs really well even if its not on the recommended list - FYI, its a white NEC All in One Desktop PowerMate P6000 Series - looks really sweet with the blue AROS One desktop.
I've added some photos and you can see the two partitions and they are fully loaded with all of the install files. I've also added a photo HDToolBox a few levels down into the partitions. I dropped the transfer rate down to 600000 and did some manual transfers of data from the CD to HDD but still getting some invalid state errors - hitting retry seems to work until the next error. I was able to change the transfer rate from HDToolBox installed on the HDD (rather than from the CD) - the programs seem to work from HDD but I can't boot from the HDD.
In one of the photos you can see Grub is loading from the HDD but after I select the resolution it goes to the no media screen and I need to put the CD back in.

Any suggestions would be welcome. It seems so close but perhaps yet so far. Thanks, Troy.

hello and welcome aros does not support sata mode from the bios you should select ide or legacy mode for your devices, if you want to install windows in dual boot first this must be the operating system to be installed during partitioning you have to leave some space for aros, once you have installed windows proceed with aros with the script install aros and select use free space it should work out fine

Hi Amiwell79,

The BIOS on this PC is very limited and I'm not able to change anything related to the HDD. However, It looks like IDE mode is the default and only option - see photo.

Regards, Troy.

already set up as an ide, don't touch anything, only I recommend that you install windows first, just in case you need to do something you can't do with aros. i only use aros, but maybe you have different needs

when you create partitions, you do not have to touch the parameters, only change the filesystem after you create the RDB.

Did you try to format disk when booted in 'VGA safe mode'? Does it give errors as well?

Alternativelly try formatting with ATA=nodma or ATA=nopci grub boot options. Does any of these options allow you to format disk without issues?