Recently, I was told that the .iso files that I'm mirroring for the
SimplyMEPIS 8.0 final release are
"obviously" corrupted.
Uh...
obviously, if this is the case, I should rectify the matter immediately; so, I shelled into the server and checked the md5sums of the files against both the reference md5sums on the server and the md5sums published by Warren. Not only did I do this for the 8.0 final release, but I did this for every .iso file in both the
released and
testing sub-directories.
The .iso files checked out fine and are not corrupted.
Returning my attention to the person who reported this, I inquired as to what he felt the problem might be with the files. Without regurgitating a lot of eye-rolling dialogue, let's just suffice it to say that this person did not check the md5sums of the downloaded files, nor the burned CD, and saw no reason to do so. He also seems to feel that, without taking any steps to verify his assumptions,
his CD-writable media is fine, there is no problem with
his CD Writer or the manner in which
he has burned the .iso files (despite burning them at the highest speed possible), and the (aged) CD drive
he's using to attempt installation with operates flawlessly--supposedly.
Whatever.
Since setting-up
mepis.gabston-howell.org and populating it with a boat-load of .iso files,
to date, I've had two complaints about .iso files that either; fail md5sum checks, or exhibit problems upon installation attempts.
The first involved a SimplyMEPIS 7.0 Beta .iso or a .delta--can't remember which it was, right now--which produced an incorrect md5sum, and that was a result of an issue Warren was having with his hosting service at that time. That has been long-rectified.
The second is a claim of a failed installation--asserted to be a bad .iso--which solidly proves to be false, as all files available for download check-out perfectly.
Allow me to repeat that for the sake of clarity:
All files available for download have been verified to be uncorrupted.
It's, admittedly, a very simple and safe world that this latest complainant seems to live in; but that has no bearing on REALITY, so let's move on to something more lucid.
If you happen to have a problem with the downloaded .isos, please consider the following possibilities (listed in order of probability) which may be at the root of your problem.
(1.) You might have a corrupted download.This is the most common problem area. Verify the md5sum or sha-1 of any and all downloads against the published checksum or hash. Re-download until you have an exact match. If you keep getting corrupted downloads, it's probably an issue with your pathway to the Internet or something to do with the machine you're downloading to. Certainly never expect a wireless download to be error-free.
(2.) You might be burning the .iso (CD image fille) incorrectly.This is also mind-numbingly common--particularly amongst the windoze-refugee crowd. An .iso (ISO-9660) is an archive which includes all the data of the files contained on the source CD/DVD. In addition to the data contained in the files it also contains all the CDFS metadata, including boot code, FS structures, and attributes. You cannot simply copy (drag-n-drop) the file to a CD and have things work. Google "ISO-9660" or "ISO Maker" and learn to correctly burn .iso files to the appropriate media target.
(3.) You might be burning the CD at too high a speed.Very, very common, and rabid gamers seem to be the worst about this. It is not a given that, just because you have a cool, eleventy-million-speed CD/DVD burner, it will produce usable output in all cases. Don't be in too much of a hurry to do things right. When you are burning .iso files of any kind, burn at the slowest speed your drive and media will permit.
(4.) You might be using faulty optical media.Price is rarely a guiding principle in writable optical media, anymore; and your favorite brand of writable optical media might just hate what you're doing with it. Try a different brand and batch number, and never use CD media certified for music. Not all drives can correctly burn a bootable image to certain batches of re-writable media; so, if you're using R/Ws, switch to Write-Once blanks.
(5.) You might have a defective CD/DVD writer/drive involved.I agree that this isn't the most common cause of a failed burn or installation attempt, but this has been verified as the single cause of a failed installation of an Operating System in no less than 5 trouble reports that I have personally seen (3 times on the optical media burner that produced the installation candidate, and twice with the optical drive used for the installation attempt) in the past 6 months. If you've reached this point with no joy, do yourself a favor and try a different optical drive in the machine.
I, myself, had two bad burns with the 7.0 final .iso on a machine that I use in the garage, but that machine is cursed with an HP DVD 300i which has always been a bit of a lemon, IMHO.
The 300i really is an outlier, statistically-speaking, as I have yet to have a problem with any other HP optical writer that I've ever encountered. Compared against the problems I've seen with other brands--particularly Plextor--this isn't really a bad state of affairs.
(Apropos to Plextor: Their meteoric fall from good-quality hardware grace marks them out as being among the brands of Optical Disc Drives reserved for the certifiably insane. Please take note of their litigious nature, now.)
The machine I'm using now, which uses an HP dvd420i, has never produced a "coaster" or "mini-frisbee". Annie's machine has always produced consistently good-quality burns on an HP dvd840, as did the HP CD-Writer Plus 8110i in her former computer, along with the host of HP CD-Writer Plus 9110i units that we picked-up at one time or another.
Then, there are the host of machines I've worked with professionally--either upgrading, repairing or integrating--that have had HP optical writers. You can read that as too many to count.
All have been stellar performers--unless the owner drops the machine down a flight of stairs, knocks it off the desk, throws it across the the room (yes, I actually dealt with one of those) or some-such. CD/DVD-Writers don't take to things like transient High-Gs too well.
