RE: Fw: 3.0.17 woody install boot disks won't net install?
Paul,
Pardon the reply from Outlook, but I happened to be in
Winders finishing my taxes when I got your E-Mail. It
promptly d/l your message and erased it from my ISP's mail
server :( I am not connected well enough to get it over to
one of the Linux machines..
You are correct in that milo (any version that works with
the XLT) does not seem to be the "problem" directly. It
finds the controller and hard drives, grabs the kernel, then
starts the bootup process just fine. The problem comes in
AFTER the kernel is unzipped and starts to execute. When it
hits the kernel code that inits the NCR53c810a, it barfs,
disconnects the controller card (and all attached HDs) from
the PCI bus, then starts complaining that it cannot find the
root partition to mount. The end result is a kernel panic.
This apparently only happens if you are booting off the NCR
controller card. I think you demonstrated that it loads and
works OK if it is NOT the boot controller. This behaviour
DOES make a difference if the NCR controller is the only one
on the system! You have demonstrated a "fall-back" solution
(get another controller card), but a current cash-flow
problem here in the form of a daughter getting "wedded" will
probably prevent any immediate implementation of this course
of action :)
I did a Google search on "ncr53c810a" and found a handful of
reports with similar complaints as Harm's & mine.
Unfortunately, most of those were not in English, so I
couldn't get much out of them. Here is one that has
identical results with the 2.4.17 kernel, and apparently
works OK with the 2.2.19 kernel from what I can devine.
http://www.sslug.dk/emailarkiv/alpha/2002_01/msg00003.html .
I tried sending an E-Mail to the author, but it bounced on
me.
Since we have essentially hijacked the original thread name,
do you think this would be worthy of starting a new thread??
Thanks again for your help and interest.
Cheers,
-Don Spoon-
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Slootman [mailto:paul@wurtel.net]On
> Behalf Of Paul Slootman
> Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2002 4:46 AM
> To: debian-alpha@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: Fw: 3.0.17 woody install boot disks
> won't net install?
>
>
> On Sun 14 Apr 2002, Donald R. Spoon wrote:
> > Harm Damsma wrote:
> > >
> > >Following your thread about kernel 2.4.18, I
> tested it overhere too.
> > >Same results with my XLT-300 and NCR-scsi as
> reported by Donald Spoon.
> > >I understood that Paul Slootman is *not* using
> the NCR to boot.
> > >Apparently we cannot boot from disk using NCR53c810a ?
> >
> > You are correct about Paul not using the NCR to
> boot the kernel. With
> > your report, it looks like I am back to my
> starting point. Well... not
> > quite. Paul has shown that the XLT will boot a
> 2.4.XX kernel with
> > another SCSI controller card. That is an
> "option" that I didn't have
> > before. Now to find another card that will work...
>
> I can try booting off the NCR-scsi if I can find
> a scratch disk to
> connect to that... Although I don't really think
> that this is relevant,
> as apparently MILO loads the kernel fine from
> your disk on the NCR-scsi,
> and that's the only point where it would make a
> difference, if I
> understand the situation correctly.
>
>
> Paul Slootman
>
>
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