Re-install Linux on a FreeBSD machine?

[fos]

I installed FreeBSD on one of my older machines. It is running fine and will read and write to the hard disk.

However, when I try to install a Linux system back on the box I get a hard drive error. The hard drive is not writable. I have tried every way I can imagine to solve this problem. My internet search has not supplied an answer.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Jeff

[danieldk]

At what point can't it read the hard disk? I have seen some partitioning programs having problems with disklabeled (as in BSD disklabel) disks. You could try to zero out the partition table, if there is nothing you want to keep on the system. Open up a shell from bootable live media. A

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024 count=1024

will surely do that trick (overwrites the first megabyte of the disk with zeros). Of course, 'hda' should be replaced with the appropriate device.

[fos]

Daniel, you are a magician!

That repaired the disk. I was considering a replacement.

Thank you,
Jeff

[Leon]

Noted with thanks, too. I have noticed that both FreeBSD and Solaris 10 x86 can cause "difficulties" with partitioning other OS's on the same drive. I have some mysteriously unused and unusable space at the beginning of a drive on which I have Solaris installed - and reinstalled - and several Linuces.

I have FreeBSD 7.0 I'm waiting to install on my next box. I'm saving up for a Matrox PCI-E video card for it. I've had it with Nvidia and ATI.

[fos]

I will be very interested in your Matrox video card results.

fos

[Leon]

I'm using a Matrox Millenium G450 AGP 4X in my P4 2.2 box.
When I rebuilt this box after the Intel 850 mobo died, I decided to try a Matrox. The Matrox cleared up some odd mouse issues I had had with the original ATI Radeon 7000. (Note: this condition was peculiar to this box; an identical Radeon 7000 in another system works fine.)

I would be quite content using an AGP card, but current mobo's are PCI-E, so not only do you need to buy a new card, you also probably need to get a bigger power supply to satisfy its higher wattage hunger. :-(