Re: Floppy installer fails to load modules

[David Clymer <david@zettazebra.com>]

On Sat, 2004-02-07 at 18:21, Jack Carroll wrote:
> 	Didn't find anything about this in the archives.
> 	I want to install Woody or Sarge on two older machines that have
> SCSI CD-ROMs and SCSI hard disks.  Neither can boot from a CD.  I've always
> booted installation programs from floppies in the past.
> 	I downloaded the boot floppy set and wrote them out according to the
> instructions in "Installing Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 for Intel x86".  I've read
> the manual pretty thoroughly.  I checked each floppy against the downloaded
> image with cmp.  None had errors.
> 	After the rescue and root floppies read in, I got a message saying
> that no hard disks were recognized.  (The same thing occurs with my
> Ethernet boards; they need to have modules loaded before they can be
> recognized.)
> 	Then I select "Load modules from floppies".  That fails with a
> message saying that it was unable to mount the driver floppy.  If I try to
> mount any of them on a machine that has Linux running, it asks me to specify
> the filesystem type.  All reasonable guesses fail -- it ain't msdos, ext2,
> or ext3.
> 
> 	This sounds like a problem with the installation instructions.  Has
> anybody successfully done an install from floppies on a system that needs
> modules to be loaded?  Do I need to build a custom kernel and install that
> on a rescue floppy?
> 

I've tried before and had similar problems with loading modules from
floppies. I would suggest 2 things:

1. try a different install kernel (type F3 at the CD boot prompt)
2. build a custom kernel and copy it over linux.bin on the boot floppy

most likely, if you are going to be booting off a SCSI controller for
which the install kernel doesnt have a driver compiled in, you are going
to have problems, and will have to compile a custom kernel. The "load
modules from floppy" option often isnt really useful - loading modules
usually can be put off until after you've got a base debian install and
can more easily configure your system to support whatever hardware you
like.

-davidc