IA64 Minimal Install goes to bash shell during install

[Don_Itanium]

I tried both the 2008 and the 2007 minimal install CD for IA64 on new Itanium processors. It mounts successfully under the EFI shell, boots elilo, but then after many screens of data with no errors says that it can't locate the CD that it already booted from and gives me an option to move to the Bash prompt.

I am now attempting to use trial and error to turn off dma to the IDE controller, turn off acpi, and even cache the CD since I have 192GB of memory.

I may well discover what is wrong in the next 1-2 weeks of experiments, but I was hoping someone might have seen this issue before with IA64?
I am also going to try to capture the one message it prints, but it is very simplistic in that it states that it cannot locate the CD media - the very CD that boots elilo successfully in the first place.

Thanks,

[NeddySeagoon]

Don_Itanium,

That error normally means the kernel is missing the driver for your the disk controller the CDROM is connected to.
The bootloader uses the BIOS to load the kernel and initrd, which is how it gets so far.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[Don_Itanium]

Thanks for the incredibly fast feedback.

Based on your response, I would next try to insert the CDROM driver at boot time, but I don't see a dd method or any other boot option applicable. However, I am thinking that if I just let it run to the Bash prompt and assuming it gives me root access, then I am thinking I should be able to modprobe the .o for the driver.

And if this works, I could next look for the gentoo IA64 kernel sources and rebuild.

Am I missing an easier method or is there a roadblock to modprobe at boot?

Thanks again for the great idea.

[Don_Itanium]

I just realized I have a 6 or so different USB external CD drives to try the install CD in here in my lab. I was trying to use the internal CDROM.

Thanks again

[NeddySeagoon]

Don_Itanium,

I suspect that the module you need isn't there, so you can't modprobe it.
You are not seeing the real root filesystem with real bash. Its busybox from the initrd.

If your CD is real SCSI, you could try the doscsi option on the kernel line at the boot: prompt.
Read the Fn help screens.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[Don_Itanium]

Thanks, now based on your direction, combined with finally reading nearly all of the Gentoo Wiki pages, I see that I could have success trying one of the many distros that I already have working with this platform, gathering the gentoo tarballs and then moving to gentoo while deleting the first distribution.

The process seems a little challenging, but working with a present IA64 installation, it would make sense that I should be able to jump to the chapter in the handbook that starts with chroot.

I appreciate your kind help and I think I am on to something here that will be quite interesting and at least as per the wiki, using an existing linux install to move to gentoo sounds like a reasonable solution to get around the CD drive issue.

Thanks again,

Don

[NeddySeagoon]

Don_Itanium,

You can use any liveCD that will boot, find your drives and give you a root shell to install gentoo.
You do not need another distro already installed.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.