Major problem with bootup after installing 3+GRP via Knoppix

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

I installed a Gentoo v1.4 system with 3+GRP via Knoppix 3.3 because of my P4B533-E motherboard (which doesn't work correctly if I boot from the Gentoo LiveCD because it fails to detect my hard drives).

Everything seems to have gone well, however... on boot, my system hangs after showing that it has seen the hard drives. The system hangs and the hard drive light stay lit, but there is not necessarily any activity (no sound from the hard drive!)

Since I cannot get a dmesg or anything like that, I had to just take pictures with my digital camera so you can see where it stops.

Any ideas on what to do?

Screenshots are here (1600x1200)... sorry, they're blurry because the camera sucks, so I left them at a large size:

http://www.red-abstract.com/users/vermyndax/images/gentoo-boot1.jpg
http://www.red-abstract.com/users/vermyndax/images/gentoo-boot2.jpg

Any insight is appreciated!

ikaro · Advocate Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 2527 Location: Denmark

with XFS right ?
isnt there some problem with some cdrw and XFS ?
i think there was some talk about that some time ago .. not sure tho .
_________________
linux: #232767

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

No, sorry, I'm using ReiserFS...

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

No one has any ideas? It seems as though it should be listing the hard drives after the point that it stops. When I installed LILO, I had to specify my hard drives in the lilo.conf... maybe that has something to do with it?

My lines are:

disk=/dev/hde
bios=0x80

disk=/dev/hdg
bios=0x81

--

This is on an Asus P4B533-E with PDC20276, as I said... both hard drives are hooked up to it. Any ideas, pretty please?

hielvc · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:17 am Post subject:

You migth boot wiith knoppix again and see it they have /proc/config.gz . If they do you can diff uour .config with theres. to see the dirrerences or use thiers.

hielvc

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

Under Knoppix, there's no /proc/config.gz. There's plenty of stuff under /proc, but no config.gz

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

I just booted under the Gentoo 1.2 LiveCD to see if an older Gentoo CD could handle the PDC20276 properly... and it can. Odd that an older version of Gentoo can see hard drives on there but 1.4 LiveCD cannot handle the PDC20276.

Anyway, once I got inside 1.2's LiveCD, I went to /proc and looked for a config.gz but didn't find one there either. Just a listing of all the devices. Is there anything I can determine from the 1.2 LiveCD environment that might help solve what I should put in my lilo.conf as the BIOS setting for the hard drives? (I suspect that is the problem...)

hielvc · Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:34 pm Post subject:

You mighg get some info from this bug #26379. There are 2 other bugs listed which you can find by querying bugs with "PDC20276" and try doing a forum search also.

hielvc

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

Okie, I worked with the info you gave me a little bit tonight. One of the bugs seemed to apply to me as well... https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17039 This bug seems to apply to my situation, but I tried setting the options specified in this bug and unfortunately it did not correct my situation.

For what it's worth, I was using the 2.4.20-gaming-r3 kernel. Wonder if I should try the gentoo-sources kernel? I'd prefer the gaming kernel since this system is primarily for just that.

Also, I did note that in /var/log/genkernel, it said:

Creating initrd...
(blah)
module pdcraid.o not found...
module ataraid.o not found...

How in the world could that happen? Totally bizarre. Wish I had a clue what was going on here, but this is reminiscent of what happened to me on Mandrake 9.0 and 9.1...

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

Nevermind... tried 2.4.20-gentoo-r6 and have the same problem. Sigh.

cyrillic · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 1:19 am Post subject:

I think 2.4.20 based kernels are too old to support your PDC20276. Try using a newer kernel (like gs-sources or ck-sources or 2.6.0) and see if that fixes it.

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

I disagree about 2.4.20 not being able to handle my PDC20276. There are menu options in the kernel for PDC202xx (which are enabled) and I've used Mandrake 9.0 and 9.1 successfully (not without some massaging though). I've also seen other people in these forums that have successfully gotten their PDC20276's to work, but they did not experience the same lockups that I did.

cyrillic · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 8:40 pm Post subject:

No really, I'm not trying to pull your leg on this one.

This is from /usr/src/linux-2.4.20-gentoo-r6/drivers/ide/pdc202xx.c

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

So... how would I go about getting a different kernel and putting it in? For instance, the 2.6.0 kernel, maybe?

cyrillic · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 11:02 pm Post subject:

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

Does this come with a preset .config file or will I need to do my own make menuconfig before compiling?

cyrillic · Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 12:28 am Post subject:

I think some people have been compiling 2.6.0 with genkernel, but I would recommend doing it manually if possible.

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

I'm running the compile now... wish me luck.

Vermyndax · Apprentice Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 208

I'm happy to report... 2.6.0 solved my issue. Woo!

cyrillic · Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 3:25 pm Post subject:

Headrush · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 1:29 am Post subject:

I had the same problem. Seems even if you aren't using the RAID functions of the PDC20276, the kernel included on the Gentoo LiveCD 1.4 doesn't have the Fastrak option enabled which is needed to properlly use drives hooked up to those IDE lines.

I found two different solutions.

1) Hook up your drives to the standard ide buses and install your system. (must disconnect one of your CD drives) Once your system is running, edit /etc/fstab to use the new ide locations eg hde, hdf, hdg, hdd) Reboot the system and at the grub menu edit the settings to point to the new hard drive location also.

or

2) Start off a distro like Mandrake that recognizes the PDC20276. (Just start the Mandrake CD as a rescue CD and proceed from there.)

Good Luck