Package: installation-reports
Boot method: the amd64 mini.iso downloaded here:
Image version: ftp://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/debian/dists/etch/main/installer-amd64/current/images/gtk-miniiso/mini.iso
Date: 1 January 2008 around 8:00 PM Australian EDST
Machine: Home-built with Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 mobo, Seagate SATAII 500GB 7200RPM hard drive with NCQ and 16MB cache, ATI Radeon X300 PCI-express video card with 128MB of RAM, SilverStone ST56F 560watt PSU, Coolermaster Mystique Full Tower Case, and a Pioneer DVR-111D 16x dual layer DVD burner
Processor: Intel Q6600
Memory: 2GB of Corsair Value Select PC-5300 memory
Partitions: installed system won't boot, but I had /dev/sda1 4GB swap, /dev/sda6 10GB ext3 "/", and /dev/sda7 30GB ext3 for "/home"
Output of lspci -nn and lspci -vnn: Can't do that because install simply drops me to (initramfs) prompt
Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Initial boot: [O]
Detect network card: [O]
Configure network: [O]
Detect CD: [O]
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives: [O]
Partition hard drives: [O]
Install base system: [O]
Clock/timezone setup: [O]
User/password setup: [O]
Install tasks: [O] the only extra thing I chose was "File Server" for Samba
Install boot loader: [O]
Overall install: [E]
Comments/Problems:
After apparently successful install, this is all I get after rebooting (I wrote this onto a piece of paper so there might be some slight transcribing errors):
ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xB407
scsi1: ata_piix
ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xBC07
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.5: MAP [ P0 P2 P1 P3 ]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.5[B] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 177
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xD000 ctl 0xD402 bmdma 0XE000 irq 177
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xD800 ctl 0xDC02 bmdma 0XE008 irq 177
scsi2 : ata_piix
ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xD007
scsi3 : ata_piix
ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xD807
Done
Begin: Mounting root file system... ...
Begin: Running /scripts/local-top ...
Done.
Check root= bootart cat /proc/cmdline
or missing modules, devices: cat /proc/modules ls /dev
ALERT! /dev/sda6 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 1:1.1.3-4) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
(initramfs)
Kebianizao on irc.debian.org #debian got me to check a few things. Here's the output of those
ls -l /dev/sda*
ls: /dev/sda*: No such file or directory
ls -l /dev/hda*
ls: /dev/hda*: No such file or directory
cat /proc/cmdline
root=/dev/sda6 ro
cat /proc/modules
This output quite a lot and I'm sick of transcribing written-down messages, but here's what I would think is important (with details omitted where I reckon they're probably not that necessary and to save typing):
ide_generic 5760 0 [permanent], Live 0xffffffff880d4000
ide_cd
cdrom
usbhid
ahci 25092 0 - Live 0xff....
ata_piix 20360 0 - Live 0xff...
libata 106784 2 ahci,ata_piix, Live 0xff...
scsi_mod 153008 2 ahci,libata, Live 0xff...
jmicron 9344 0 [permanent], Live 0xff...
generic
ehci_hcd
ide_core 147584 4 ide_generic,ide_cd,jmicron,generic, Live 0xff...
uhci_hcd
thermal
processor
fan
I also tried editing the kernel command-line to use "acpi=off" and after doing so noticed a heap of partitions addressed as hdg? so I then specified root=/dev/hdg6 (with and without the "acpi=off") but couldn't get the full system to load, either.
I've evaluated five linux distros since 26 December 2007 - Kubuntu 7.10, PCLinuxOS 2007, openSUSE 10.3, Linux Mint 4.0, and Simply MEPIS 7 and all of them used these partitions without problems. Good hunting.