> > Look at the message just before the md driver message for the > > problem. It will probably turn out to be the disk controler doesn't > > like being probed at boot time and is locking up. Some systems will > > require an entry on the "boot line" or use the tecra rescue disk like the > > lap top systems need. Search the archives at www.debian.org for the > > source of a new rescue disk if you have a aha27xx disk controler. You will > > also find sources of 1440 SLINK disks but I would not recomend them at > > this time. > > The line before the "md driver" line was the floppy controller detect, which > worked. And before that, was a perfectly correct detection of both IDE > controllers and all four devices on them. What I'll try is booting up with a > few more combinations of hardware device disabled, to see if this works.
Now that you mention it, I think I remeber the reason my computer paused on boot was neither the md-driver nor the previous driver; it was the SCSI-driver which followed. Here is part of the dmesg-output I get when booting the debian kernel: ... ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306 md driver 0.35 MAX_MD_DEV=4, MAX_REAL=8 Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card! ppa: Version 1.42 ppa: Probing port 03bc ppa: SPP port present ppa: EPP not supported at this address ppa: Probing port 0378 ppa: Probing port 0278 scsi : 0 hosts. scsi : detected total. Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 hda9 hda10 > ... maybe this helps, robert