Gentoo (and other linux distributions), refuse to boot

olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Hi all,

I bought a new server at work and wanted to use linux to create images.

The motherboard is an Asus P5B with Intel SATA Controller. (Which has 2 320GB Seagate SATA drives).
The motherboard has an additional JMicron JMB363 Controller. (Which has 2 Lite-On DVD-/+RW drives).
Linux boots fine from either of the DVD-/+RWs and everything is fine until it tries to mount the DVD-/+RW Drive.
It's probing for /dev/sda, sdb and sdc and so on... afterwards it tells me it can't find a CD to boot and that another medium is needed and the only thing that I can get is a bare shell.
Is there anything I can do to fix this, do I need another IDE Controller that is compatible with linux? (on ubuntu it displays mounting root filesystem where it hangs and knoppix does not boot either).

davascript · l33t Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 618 Location: Pennsylvania

Have you tried to pass any options to the gentoo kernel like

Cuardin · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject:

You said the problem was with the CD/DVD drives right? No problems with the HDs just now, right?

In that case, does the kernel you are booting with have built in support for the controller that controlls the CD/DVDs? It appears that 2.6.15+ kernels or so have support for the controller, so it shouldn't be an impossibility to fix.
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jpl888 · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 12:58 pm Post subject:

And according to the JMicron website Gentoo is supported.

Looking through the kernel sources "AHCI" refers to that controller, so is AHCI loaded? Other than that are there any errors in dmesg? Does lspci report the controller?

olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Well it's basically like this:
The Onboard JMicron Controller is a SATA/PATA (IDE) Controller and has support for 2 SATA (1 Internal 1 on-the-go) and 2 IDE/PATA Drives.
I am currently only using the JMicron PATA Controller (I am using the Intel SATA Controller for the 2 Seagate HDD's) The Primary Master is a Lite-On SHM16P5S and the Primary Slave is a Lite-On SHM16P5S aswell.

When I pop in the CD it shows me the ISO Linux screen and I pressed enter there, then it loaded the kernel and various module which all went fine until it comes to the part where it tries to mount the CD-Rom as a filesystem.

EDIT: Ok I just tried booting with just a single DVD-/+RW Connected...same thing, I also tried to just boot with the failsafe option gives me the same thing.

The exact error

FantomKnight · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:43 pm Post subject:

Instead of just pressing enter at the boot prompt, type in gentoo doscsi. Sometimes, SATA controllers need to have SCSI support forced in order for the CD to be recognized. Also, if you are like me and don't want to boot into the GUI from the LiveCD, you can type gentoo doscsi nox. This will basically give you the same non-GUI interface that previous Gentoo install CDs had.
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olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Cuardin · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:47 pm Post subject:

Yeah, that is pretty much how I understood it.
What you need to do is get a kernel that has built-in support for your controller.
If I understand correctly, what you are seeing is that the BIOS can communicate with the controller and load the boot-loader and then the boot-loader asks the bios to load the kernel. Then the kernel starts up, and since bios-calls are super-slow, it skips those and begins to load drivers that can communicate directly. Now, if there is no driver for the JMicron device, then the kernel willr efuse to communicate with that device. That way, you just lost communication with the DVD-drive that contains the init-scripts and everything else you need to get the installation system running.

What I would do is place one DVD on the Intel controller instead of a HD. Place the gentoo-cd in there and boot. This should work flawlessly. Now install gentoo on the remaining HD, and make sure you enable support for the JMicron device (as well as everything else) in the kernel. When you boot your fresh system, it should be able to read both DVD drives.

Now, since you have two identical drives, I assume RAID is on the menu. I am not an expert on raid, but I am fairly sure you can fix RAID after you pretty much got the complete system installed if you plan ahead. Just jack in the second device in the right place and tell your system that this drive is to be part of the RAID array. If things are properly configured, everything should work automagically.

If you don't want RAID, then you have no problem. Just put the second drive back and do whatever you want with it.
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olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

FantomKnight · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:50 pm Post subject:

Your previous post said

Cuardin · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:53 pm Post subject:

Isn't there a list of what devices are compiled into the boot kernels? That would easilly and decidedly resolve this issue?
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olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Cuardin · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:57 pm Post subject:

But are you sure the drivers ARE included?
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olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

I wouldn't know, how would I, but by default if a kernel is compiled, the developpers include the whole module dir right? If so it should be included.

FantomKnight · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 2:01 pm Post subject:

I just know that I once had a machine that I tried to boot several distros on, including Ubuntu. None of them would boot. The only one that I could get to boot was Gentoo using the doscsi option. Although this may not be the solution in your case. Hope you get it working though.

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olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Ok i just read through the forums and found the all-generic-ide option. I booted with this option and it worked, however when using this option, everything is REALLY slow...

BTW: It found my drive on /dev/hdk...

olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Even things like starting cfdisk takes a few minutes...

olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Okay I found similair threads in google with people having the exact same problems with the exact same motherboards so it's a critical bug.

More information: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1369854 and http://fcp.homelinux.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=24885&forum=12&post_id=105517

It might be fixed in kernel 2.6.18 as stated...now lets hope that the Gentoo Linux 2006.1 CD uses the 2.6.18 kernel or patches it prematurely.

Cuardin · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 2:31 pm Post subject:

If you have another computer, you can allways place one of your HDs in that comp and do the installation on that comp, then move it to your new comp and boot it up. Not a good solution, but I did it once, and it isn't as complex as it may sound.

Still need good drivers for your DVD sooner or later, though.
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FantomKnight · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:55 pm Post subject:

Or, maybe you could do what one of the guys in those posts did. He disabled the JMicron controller and booted from a USB CD-ROM drive to get his system installed.
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FantomKnight · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 4:20 pm Post subject:

olger901, I just ran across another thread where someone used the docache boot option to get through an installation when nothing else worked. He probably had a different mobo, though. But still may be worth a shot.
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olger901 · l33t Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 625

Thanks, I am gonna try that docache option, btw I filed a blocker bug report about 2 hours ago now, hoping that someone will look at it as I believe other motherboards that use the same JMicron controller may be having problems aswell...

zuluxxx · n00b Joined: 21 Apr 2006 Posts: 40 Location: Paris, France

I have the exact same problem, I posted on Hardawre under the name of my motherboard which uses JMicron
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-488808.html

I guess this one also has the same problem here:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-488723.html

I made net install of Fedora which does not require to mount the CD and then installed gentoo from this. Of course I'm not satisfied that my burner is not recognised. you can find Alan Cox discussing this exact problem specific to JMicron here:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/fa.linux.kernel/browse_frm/thread/85c93347ac2e53c7/beb56497d80c2493?tvc=1&q=jmicron+pata+linux#beb56497d80c2493
According to this thread the problemis solced in linux-2.6.18-mm2.
I installed it but could still not get the drive to work. If anybody succeeds, BIOS conf and Kernel conf would be highly appreciated

hinibi · n00b Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 1

hello ppl

well i had the same problem, thought a bit, look in bios and found in the Bios (where it shows the detected ide device). there i found an option about the ide device, it was on Enhance. I switch option to Compatible, booted on gentoo CD, and all went well

hope this helps you