HD Install-SCSI Drives

Forum: HD Install
Topic: HD Install-SCSI Drives
started by: RAdams

Posted by RAdams on Aug. 29 2006,15:21

I've got an old Pentium I box with a hard drive and CD-ROM connected via a PCI SCSI controller. I can boot from CD by changing the SCSISelect Utility to boot from CD (the BIOS doesn't natively support booting from CD) or using the DSL boot floppy image.

Either way, I get the error about not being able to find a KNOPPIX filesystem, and dropped to a limited shell.

My checksum for the iso is correct. I'm using the syslinux image.

I've tried everything I can think of to get it to run, including the poorman's install method. What should I try next?

EDIT: The SCSI Utility pretends to be a BIOS, so I disabled it. This means I can only boot from floppy. I did so, using the DSL bootfloppy, and ended up with the same problem.

lsmod always returns:

Quote

ide-cd 28512 0
ide-scsi 8816 0

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Aug. 30 2006,02:56

Is there a ~50mb /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file on the root of your hdd?

I suppose you could also try fromhd=/dev/sdXx

Posted by RAdams on Aug. 30 2006,07:19

Quote (^thehatsrule^ @ Aug. 29 2006,22:56)

Is there a ~50mb /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file on the root of your hdd?

I suppose you could also try fromhd=/dev/sdXx

Yes. Well, there was. I was getting this problem regardless of what method I used, so I formatted and checked the harddrive... I'm getting the same results whether I force it to boot from CD, use the bootfloppy and CD or poorman's...

Posted by skaos on Aug. 30 2006,08:57

If you want to do a hard disk install and have another PC, you could do this: take the disk out, install it as primary master in the other PC (disconnect all other disks just in case), install DSL, and finally transfer the disk back. This assumes that it is an ide disk.

Posted by RAdams on Aug. 30 2006,17:08

Quote (skaos @ Aug. 30 2006,04:57)

I don't have another computer to use at this office that isn't SCSI or RAID (and I'd rather not use the RAID one anyway).

I give up on DS Linux. Which is a shame, because it seems perfect for this application. But if the installer won't work (I tried it in failsafe mode), then it just won't work.

Unless...

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Aug. 31 2006,01:04

skaos: his case was a scsi drive...

RAdams: just wondering.. did DSL detect your scsi controller on boot?

Posted by RAdams on Aug. 31 2006,13:34

I saw no evidence that it did. Given that lsmod returned what it did (see my first post), I believe this particular SCSI controller "tricked" DSL into thinking these are IDE drives (it does the same thing to Windows). I deactivated everything I could, but I always get the same result.

Posted by skaos on Aug. 31 2006,13:51

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-n/ comes with (I think) a 2.6.x kernel which may/may not work.

Posted by RAdams on Aug. 31 2006,15:12

Quote (skaos @ Aug. 31 2006,09:51)

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-n/ comes with (I think) a 2.6.x kernel which may/may not work.

Hmmm... worth a shot...

Posted by RAdams on Sep. 01 2006,19:35

I tried DSL-N, boot floppy gave an error ("Boot failed"). I cannot boot from CD (ISOLINUX won't work on this machine).

The errors aren't very verbose. It "just doesn't work".