[jan-jaap]

Hi there!

- I have been having some issues with the hard drive in the Octane, which was shipped with the unit with a clean 6.5 install. I managed to reset the root password through miniroot (booting from DINA) and the system is practically functional although there is a bit of trashing and non-responsiveness at times. Running xfs_check shows a bunch of errors which I would like to repair, if possible. Running xfs_repair requires the drive to be unmounted so, seeing as I do not have access to a CD-ROM, my only chance seems to be running xfs_repair through a miniroot from DINA. This does not appear to work, as I seem to be unable to unmount anything from miniroot (ie, /dev/root: device busy or /dev/dsk/dks0d....: device busy). I get the exact same errors as if I had booted from the main drive instead. Short of pulling the drive from the unit and mounting it in other computer as second drive, is there an easy way to run xfs_repair in the Octane so as to fix the hard drive?

FWIW, I don't think there's xfs_repair in the miniroot. What you could do is boot into 'fx' from the PROM, and then run a (read-only!) sequential exercise of the disk: '(exe)rcise > (seq)ential > (ro) > select whole disk > go'. This would force it to map out bad blocks. Then run xfs_repair, using another system. But if that disk has bad blocks, I'd still replace it. You could try to cone the disk to a new disk if there's something you wish to preserve.

- As for the other question, the Indigo2 (teal color) was originally fitted with a GR2-XZ graphics card, and it is running 6.5.22. I eventually managed to find an Elan card for a very reasonable price and went on to install it in parallel with the XZ hoping to be able to run a dual head configuration at some stage (I moved the XZ card to the originally empty slot, and installed the Elan card in the slot which was originally occupied by the XZ card). Would this kind of configuration possibly work? The system detects both graphics cards but I am unable to get any video out of one of the cards. I have not attempted a reinstall of the OS, in case it might matter, which I think it could.

Beware that half a dozen different types of power supplies used to exist for the Indigo2. Dual head requires a dual-head capable PSU to supply the extra current. Also, even though there are three or four GIO connectors, logically there are only two slots, and no two cards can share the same slot so placements of the cards is important. See: http://archive.irix.cc/sgistuff/hardware...ml#options

You cannot mix different generations of cards (e.g. Express and IMPACT) but you're not doing that, so my guess is that the placement of the cards is not correct.