I've gotten those a fair bit in the past also.  I allways assumed they
were caused by minor defects in the disk.  Using a different disk seemed
to do the trick.  I think soft errors are recoverable though.  If you see
hard errors, then you could loose data.  NetBSD probably complains on the
first timeout It gets, where as so called "operating systems" like dos,
will try multiple times before reporting an error. 

Anyway, if you're just getting soft errors, it'll probably work anyway.
I've never noticed any data corruption due to soft errors.  It wouldn't
hurt to use a different disk though...

	Rick

On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Seth Owen wrote:

> I'm getting these errors during install also, any ideas as to why?  Is
> it a problem, or can you have a full function NetBSD 1.2?
> 
> Haven't see any responses to Allen's problem on the list.
> 
> Seth Owen (seth.pchelp.inc.net)
> 
> 
> >----------
> >From: 	Allen E. Caldwell[SMTP:caldwell@connectek.com]
> >Sent: 	Wednesday, February 12, 1997 8:57 PM
> >To: 	port-i386@NetBSD.ORG
> >Subject: 	Installation Questions
> >
> >
> >I have been trying to install NetBSD 1.2 on a 486 system.
> >
> >Configuration Information :
> >
> >   80486DX4/100 AMD
> >   2s/1p/2ide/1fdc on motherboard
> >   16mb memory
> >   Adaptec 2940 ( pci )
> >   1gb scsi id 0
> >   3gb scsi id 1
> >   qic scsi id 2
> >   1.44 floppy disk
> >   svga ( isa )
> >   Kingston nic ( pci )
> >
> >All goes well during the boot from kcadp12.fs, and the initial 
> >setup of the size of the different file systems ( root, swap, 
> >var, usr ).  But when the install starts to copy from the 
> >inst-12.fs floppy to the hard drive filesystems, I start getting 
> >a long stream of error messages that look like the following :
> >
> >   fd0a: soft error reading fsbn 2104-2109
> >
> >The numbers are different as the items scroll down up screen.
> >I have changed floppy drives, I have changed drive cables, I
> >have changed floppy disks, creating new from rawrite, and so
> >on, and so on.  But each time I get the same thing, maybe the
> >numbers are different, but the same type of errors.
> >
> >Any ideas what this is about?  Any suggestions as to what to do, 
> >or who to ask.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> >
> 

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Rick Byers                                      Internet Access Worldwide
rickb@iaw.on.ca                                System Admin, Tech Support
Welland, Ontario, Canada                                    (905)714-1400
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