Mark Knecht wrote:
Hi ho Gentoo-ers,
Why can't I boot??? Why can't I boot... Why? I do not even get as
far as a grub message.
I've just now installed Gentoo 2005.0 for the second time on a
brand new Pundit-R machine. (ATI chipset, Celeron-D 533 FSB, 256MB)
Both times the install went absolutely fine and both times the machine
came up lame with the following AMI BIOS/boot messages:
Auto-Detecting Primary Master..IDE Hard disk
Auto-Detecting Primary Slave..ATAPI CD-ROM
Pri Master: IBM-DPTA-371360 P74IA30A
Ultra-DMA Mode 4, S.M.A.R.T capable and status OK
All right, SMART isn't reporting any errors. That's good.
Pri.Slave: TOSHIBA CDW/DVD SD-R1612 TB02
Ultra-DMA Mode 2
Put this on the Secondary IDE channel for better performance. Only one
device can use the IDE channel. You'll really feel this performance hit
when copying from a CD or burning one.
Auto-Detecting USB Mass Storage Devices
00 USB mass storage devices found and configured
Do you have any USB devices? If not, shut off USB. No sense leaving it on.
Primary Master Hard Disk Error
Press F1 to resume
I've never used an AMI BIOS before. What's it complaining about? It
sees the drive but says the drive has an error? What's that mean
exactly?
Google for it.
If I press F1, reboot using the 2005.0 install CD then the machine
hangs, so I did the install using:
gentoo-nofb ide=nodma
If I reboot the same way I can eventually ssh in:
The drive is there:
livecd root # fdisk -l /dev/hda
Disk /dev/hda: 13.5 GB, 13578485760 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 26310 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 98 49360+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 99 1091 500472 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3 1092 26310 12710376 83 Linux
livecd root #
Modern drives use Zoned Bit Recording, which means there's more sectors
on the outermost tracks. For better swap performance, move your swap
partition to the end of the drive. Not at all related to your problem,
but good to know.
Since this machine is intended to be a MythTV frontend only I didn't
much care about hard drive performance so I used an old drive I had
here to save some money. (I only need 5GB or so for this machine and
you cannot buy anything smaller than 40-80GB these days so I'm using
an old 13GB drive that was in a machine we trashed 6 months ago.) The
machine is intended to be on all the time and mythfrontend seems to
make very little usage of the hard drive once the app is up and
running.
The partitions mount fine while using the LiveCD. The boot partition
is marked bootable and the OS is there:
livecd root # df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 95176 5300 89876 6% /
/newroot/dev/cdroms/cdrom0
695762 695762 0 100% /mnt/cdrom
/dev/loop/0 53248 53248 0 100% /mnt/livecd
tmpfs 95176 1128 94048 2% /lib/firmware
/dev/hda3 12510864 1379912 10495436 12% /mnt/gentoo
/dev/hda1 47584 2764 42352 7% /mnt/gentoo/boot
livecd root #
Here's some drive info:
livecd root # hdparm -i /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Model=IBM-DPTA-371360, FwRev=P74IA30A, SerialNo=JHYJHH30826
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=34
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=1961kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
CurCHS=65535/1/63, CurSects=4128705, LBA=yes, LBAsects=26520480
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 *udma4
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-4 T13 1153D revision 17: 1 2 3 4
* signifies the current active mode
livecd root #
So the big questions are:
1) What exactly is this AMI BIOS message telling me?
Firstly, are there any BIOS updates available? Flash the BIOS to the
latest version and then try it again. A Celeron-D motherboard shouldn't
have any of the major ATA barriers (504 MB, 8.4 GB, 33.8 GB, 137 GB,
etc.) but maybe the BIOS has a bug in it. It happens.
...Is the cable loose? That would cause an error. Check your cables,
and if they're loose, I won't tell anyone. :-)
Try a different IDE cable. Your cables might be damaged.
Try another Molex connector. It's common for Molex pins to come out of
the connector over time, more so if you've taken off the connectors
before (i.e., to sleeve the PSU or change the Molex connectors). Also,
trying a different plug could result in more juice to the drive. Try to
put components on separate +12V rails.
Did you mistype CurrCHS? If you only have one head, then LBA can't
possibly be enabled, because that changes the CHS count to
65536/*16*/63. Go into the BIOS and try the different disk access
modes, such as CHS, Large and LBA. Don't just rely on autodetect. If 1
head is being reported, something's definitely messed up somewhere and
that could be the cause of your problems.
Don't just stop at transfer modes. Make sure all the drive information
is correctly autodetected. Try setting it to User and typing in your
information manually (if using CHS or Large; LBA doesn't need it).
2) Is it possible that an older drive might not be supported by the
IDE controllers in the ATI chipset? (I.e. - can the chipset simply not
talk to the drive?)
If it's an IDE drive on an IDE controller, then it should have no
problems. It's turning on ATA/5 (udma4) transfer mode, so are you using
an 80-conductor cable instead of the old-school 40-wire? (Rounded
cables are always 80-conductor.)
I tried disconnecting the CDRW/DVD completely to see if it was a
conflict between the two EIDE devices but go the same failure. the
drive is seen but does not boot.
Linux may have trouble with drives set to Cable Select. Change the
jumpers in the back. You might have them jumpered incorrectly or
jumpered in some nonsense configuration. (Most likely.) Make sure the
jumper pins aren't bent and touching each other, and set the drive to
Master (or Slave) and the combo drive to the other setting..
--
Colin
--
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