2 problems after install

pr0vidence · n00b Joined: 12 Apr 2002 Posts: 47 Location: Connecticut

I have installed Gentoo on a somewhat older machine. Here's an idea of the machine.

Tyan Tomcat Dual, Dual processor motherboard with twin P200MMX
96MB Ram
4.3GB hard drive.

Things mostly went well, except for 2 things.

1) it seems DMA access is not supported on that board. It is turned on by default. I noticed while installing that when I mounted the CD-ROM it gave me a few DMA "drive not ready for command" messages (but seemed to work fine) I remedied that with "hdparm -d0 /dev/hda" and "hdparm -d0 /dev/hdd" That fixes it, but only temporarily, after rebooting, DMA is turned back on, each time it boots, it pauses for a few seconds, I get the following messages.

hda: timeout waiting for DMA
ide_dmaproc: chipset supported ide_dma_timeout func only: 14
had: status error: status:0x58 {DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest}
hda: Drive not ready for command

then it pauses again, gives me the same messages again, repeates the process a third time, and then goes about it's business loading everything else as though nothing were wrong. The question all that is leading up to is: how do I turn off DMA permanantly? OR is there something I can do to make DMA start working on this machine?

Whew, the second problem shouldn't be so lengthy

2) I followed installation procedures to the letter for installing grub. but after the reboot, the PC tells me that there is no bootable (active partition) drive on the system. I have had working bootable linux installations on this machine before, using both lilo AND grub (using RedHat) so I don't think it's a compatibililty thing. for now I boot off the gentoo boot CD and do "linux root=/dev/hda3" which works, but I would rather boot off the hard drive, any ideas?

Thanks all, I appreciate any and all help.

tkdack · Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2002 4:36 am Post subject: Re: 2 problems after install

pr0vidence · n00b Joined: 12 Apr 2002 Posts: 47 Location: Connecticut

Hey, thanks for the help.

My partitions are set up the same way as they are in the Installation procedure on the Gentoo web site.

/dev/hda1 /boot
/dev/hda2 SWAP
/dev/hda3 /

in grub I did
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> exit

If that helps at all.

I created a grub boot floppy. If I boot off the floppy and do.

grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> kernel /bzImage root=/dev/hda3
grub> boot

the machine boots like it should, that's not so bad, at least I'm using the right kernel. I just don't understand why it's not booting off the hard drive.