Re: jessie won't install/boot on a Dell Poweredge R815
Are you certain that there isn't a PERC H700 in this machine? [Sort of
odd that mpt2sas is triggering a state error in your screenshot if there
actually isn't one.]
There could be one. But I probably don't use it. I use software RAID. Dell
wouldn't sell an R815 without an OS. I think I purchased it with RHEL which
may have needed the PERC H700. But I never even booted RHEL. The first thing I
did was a fresh install of squeeze, or maybe wheezy.
OK. This:
> 00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [IDE mode]
makes me think that the SATA controller is in IDE/Legacy mode instead of
AHCI. In theory, this shouldn't matter, but it's possible that this is
also a problem. I'd try switching it in the bios and see what happens.
I'll do that in a bit. Before I got your current post, I tried some things in
response to your previous post. I'll report on that here and then go back and
try the new things.
Here is what I did.
I had a fresh minimal USB install of wheezy running. That install was done
with debian-wheezy-DI-b1-amd64-netinst.iso from Jul 15 2012. I also put the
non-free firmware on the USB. When I did that, I unchecked all of the boxes
during the install for any extra packages. The only thing that I installed
after that was
apt-get install less
I then did
nano /etc/apt/source.list
(change all wheezy to jessie)
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
I answered all of the defaults.
(default) all
(default) no
(default) cron
I captured this with
script -t 2>upgrade-jessie1 time -a ~/upgrade-jessie1.script
(My mistake. I forgot a period between upgrade-jessie1 and time.)
http://upplysingaoflun.ecn.purdue.edu/~qobi/time
http://upplysingaoflun.ecn.purdue.edu/~qobi/upgrade-jessie1
You can see that it all worked.
You can see that at the end I did
apt-get install firmware-linux
dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc
# default
# default
# check all /dev/sd?
and it all worked.
You can also see that at the end I did
cat /proc/mdstat
and all 6 components of both md0 and md1 were there.
Then I did and
/sbin/reboot
The first reboot failed. It gave a similar screen as to the one that you
already saw.
Then I did a second reboot, with delay=20. That did the same.
Then I did a third reboot, with rootdelay=20. That worked. I got a login
prompt, logged in, and got a root shell.
At that point, I did a
cat /proc/mdstat
and all 6 components of both md0 and md1 were there.
Then I did a
dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc
My intent was to add rootdelay=20 to the command line. But I got lots of
errors while doing so. I realized that I should have done this under script.
So I did
script -t 2>upgrade-jessie2.time -a ~/upgrade-jessie2.script
(this time with the period) and redid
dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc
and also did
cat /proc/mdstat
and attempted
mdadm /dev/md0 --add /dev/sda1
mdadm /dev/md0 --add /dev/sdb1
mdadm /dev/md0 --add /dev/sdc1
mdadm /dev/md0 --add /dev/sdd1
mdadm /dev/md0 --add /dev/sde1
mdadm /dev/md0 --add /dev/sdf1
but these all failed.
http://upplysingaoflun.ecn.purdue.edu/~qobi/upgrade-jessie2.script
http://upplysingaoflun.ecn.purdue.edu/~qobi/upgrade-jessie2.time
The machine is now in the state left at the end of the above script. If you
want me to do some more things in this state, let me know. Or I can do a fresh
USB install of wheezy and rebuild md0.
> What does the kernel output while it is detecting the disks and
> partitions?
Remove the quiet option from the kernel command line by editing it in grub.
I will do this next time.
> Do all of the drives show up properly?
echo /dev/sd*; should give you an idea of what is there in the initramfs.
I will do this next time.
> When the boot fails, can you read from the underlying block
> devices?
more /dev/sda; should work, I believe.
I will do this next time.
> I don't know what one can do in at the initramfs command prompt. If you give
> me some commands, I will try them out and post the output.
>
> Does specifying delay=20 or similar result in a successful boot?
> I will try this.
This should actually be rootdelay=20; sorry.
Done. See above.
> I will try to get this info. It will require me to redo the exercise
> of a fresh jessie install from USB. I'll have to take and post screen
> pictures because I have no way to capture the console output.
I believe the R815 still has a serial port; you can just plug in a
serial cable and append an appropriate serial tty option to the kernel
command line to get output as text.
I figured out how to use script. That will work for most situations.
What I'm trying to do is get enough information so that the error is
obvious.
Thanks. Let me know what you want me to try next. Do you still wish me to do
the following?
> What does the kernel output while it is detecting the disks and
> partitions?
Remove the quiet option from the kernel command line by editing it in grub.
> Do all of the drives show up properly?
echo /dev/sd*; should give you an idea of what is there in the initramfs.
> When the boot fails, can you read from the underlying block
> devices?
more /dev/sda; should work, I believe.
Should it be with or without rootdelay=20?
Jeff (http://engineering.purdue.edu/~qobi)
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