Mark

At 19:14 15.03.2004 +1100, Mark Holmes wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'm using a computer with no keyboard / monitor and booting off a compact
>flash card using an IDE - Compact Flash adaptor.
>The setup runs quite nice.
>
>I recently set about setting up a boot system using a Nexdisk USB storage
>device. (as a recovery option because the firewall has no floppy either)
>I've placed syslinux (tried win98 command line and loadin as well) and the
>packages on the nexdisk and placed all the required modules into
>/boo/lib/modules and the entries in /boot/etc. The Nexdisk is configued as
>sda1, via the appropriate modules.
>
>I can boot off a floppy with the same modules and the Nexdisk on another
>system and can mount the Nexdisk as sda1. (modules are not the problem)
>
>However, if I boot the Nexdisk on its own, the system tries to access the
>floppy drive (no disk) as it mounts the temp file system and kernel panics.

Have you been able to determine where _exactly_ it panics. I guess it must be when it 
determines the PKGPATH parameter and tries to mount that device.
Could you give us your syslinux.cfg. 


>If I place a floppy in the drive it mounts the temp files system and
>continues to load off the nexdisk once sd_mod.o completes initialsiation and
>all packages are loaded off sda1 (the Nexdisk).
>
>The solution appears to be that a delay is needed in /linuxrc between the
>end of loading of the boot modules and the mounting of the temp file system,
>because the temp file system is attempted to be mounted on /dev/sda1, which
>doesn't exist yet because sd_mod.o hasn't completed initialising sda1 via
>the usb-storage.o

The delay might certainly help. Physically accessing the floppy drive will delay also, 
which might be why your system works if there is a floppy. Could you show us where the 
tmpfs is mounted on /dev/sda1 (which I assume is either the boot or PKGPATH parameter)


>How do I deal with boot modules not completely loaded before the temp
>filesystem is mounted?

- Are you sure it is the temp filesystem?

In your case....
Check the device for availability, probably /proc/scsi/usb-storage-0/0, else loop and 
time out.

cheers
Erich

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