I am trying to upgrade my Fedora Core 1 (FC1) box to FC3 with no luck.
The motherboard is a Tyan K7 Thunder (2462) with the latest BIOS. It has an onboard Adaptec 7899 SCSI controller. The SCSI controller seems to be the problem.
The box just hangs after loading the aic7xxx module. Googling has dug up few solutions to a problem which seems to have started with FC2.
Looks like I'll have to answer my own question. I have partially resolved the problem. Rather than write another description here, I'll just quote my own Bugzilla report
( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=152660)
along with some updates.
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"Description of problem:
The system is a Tyan Thunder K7 (2462) motherboard with the latest v2.14 BIOS.
"The installer seems to hang when after loading the Aic7xxx module. But after about 20-25 minutes of inactivity, it finally starts scanning each device on each channel of the controller. Because Channel B is the preferred boot channel on the 7899 Ultra160 controller, the whole process takes better than a half hour to actually find the drives, leading the user to assume that the system has either hung or that the SCSI controller has timed out.
"The system being tested has no devices on Channel A. This seems to be a holdover problem from FC2 and FC3. FC1 has no problems.
"I booted with "Linux nousb acpi=off noapic" as the installer also seems to hang trying to identify or communicate with the installed USB controllers. ACPI has been disabled in the mobo BIOS. The system is booting from an IDE CD-ROM drive.
"While I have put this bug in the "Normal" category, I suspect that it has led many users to assume that the product could not be installed on their hardware.
"A boot option to select the primary SCSI Channel might be helpful in this case.
"Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
"How reproducible: Always
"Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install from CD. 2. Respond to all prompts as usual. 3. Wait.
"Actual Results: Eventually the system responded and I was offered the Install options screen and given the opportunity to upgrade from the existing FC1 installation. I did not proceed further as I will now try an FC3 upgrade (which I had previously assumed was broken because of this problem). I will report further regarding that install.
"Expected Results: With the Fedora Core 1 (and previous Redhat versions) the drives were relatively immediately found and the install proceeded as normal. There were no extended pauses as in the cases of all FC2-FC4t1 attempts."
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I have since verified the same condition and its painful resolution with FC3. However, I did not need to use any "linux <option>" parameters during the FC3 install. I suspect one must go through the same patient waiting with FC2. I will also file a bug report in the FC3 Bugzilla database.
Ironically, once I got the FC3 install process moving, I was informed by the installer that, alas, I had too little drive space to complete the update. Now I need a new hard drive.
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Best Regards,
~DJA.-- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
