wrong drive geometry when not booted with dma
Forum: HD Install
Topic: wrong drive geometry when not booted with dma
started by: mattjackets
Posted by mattjackets on Oct. 31 2004,23:18
hi all, I have a problem....when i boot dsl from the cd with "dsl dma" fdisk -l reports my proper drive geometry, and i can create partitions and run the hd install scripts. mkliloboot reports an error about not reading /proc/partitions (even though it exists.)
the script reports success, and it can boot...to a point.
the boot fails with a kernel panic, and the line above the panic is:
VFS: bogus logical sector size 0
when I boot dsl without dma from the cd; fdisk -l reports completely wrong disk geometry, and that there is no partition table. if one is created, writing hangs the entire machine.
so.....does anyone have any ideas? i think setting up lilo to boot the kernel with the dma parameter will work, but i can't figure that one out.....
thanks,
+matt
UPDATE:
I thought I'd mention a fe wthings i've tried:
+setting the geometry manually at the boot: prompt
+writing zeros to the begining and end of the drive.
setting the geometry manuallly did make fdisk report the correct geometry, but it still crashed when trying to write the table
Posted by mattjackets on Nov. 01 2004,14:01
just wanted to add some more info/clarifications....the errors look like this:
FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
VFS: Kernel panic: unable to mount root partition
I've modified the mkliloboot script to add "dma" and "hda=13328,15,63" to the append= line but it dosn't help at all.....
the drive is a quantum fireball se (6.4g) and the same dsl cd was able to install fine on a different (seagate 1gig) drive.
ideas please? i'm running out
thanks,
+matt
Posted by skaos on Nov. 01 2004,15:11
What kind of system do you have? - I think many (most?) early pentiums had a 2 GB limitation in the bios. Maybe you could make a 1 GB partition at the beginning of the disk and then try again?
Posted by ico2 on Nov. 01 2004,17:18
skaos: what the bios requognises does not matter, with linux (and windows) this bios is ignored and the kernel runs the machine.
Posted by mattjackets on Nov. 01 2004,17:41
One of the first things i tried was to create a small (200M) partition at the begining of the drive......to further confuse matters..... I was able to boot the exact same model drive today on another machine....the geometry is still reported wrong, but at least it boots, and can get to the point where dma is enabled in the kernel.....
I'm thinking that grub or a custom kernel that has dma enabled by default may be a solution.....
what do you think?
thanks,
+matt
anyone know why there is no grub.conf created when grub is apt-got?
Posted by msuho on Nov. 06 2004,05:05
Matt-I experienced the same problem as you. I ended up doing a frugal install, using the following steps:
1) from the live CD: boot dsl dma
2) partition disk as you desire
3) copy the /usr/sbin/frugal_instal.sh to /home/dsl. The lilo.conf file it makes has nodma set, so search for nodma, and chnage it to dma.
4) run the modified frugal_instal.sh
Let us know if it works!
Mark
Posted by mattjackets on Nov. 13 2004,00:50
Mark, thanks for the tip....sure enough, the frugal install worked......strange though...and here's why:
I modified the mkliloboot script to add dma to the append line in lilo.conf (same as the frugal script) but it didn't work.......
I'm glad i have it booting off the hdd, but i don't want it running out of a ramdisk...and asking for config options every boot. does anyone know the difference between the hdinstall and frugal kernel/lilo options off hand? I'm going to look into this myself, and post whatever i find.
+matt
Posted by mattjackets on Nov. 13 2004,03:55
GOT IT!!!!looks like 0.8.4 fixed this issue.
simply booted the cd (without the dma boot option)
ran standard hdinstall script, and mkliloboot
no problems booting anymore
thanks to everyone for their help
+matt
Posted by mattjackets on Nov. 14 2004,04:20
CORRECTION: don't got it....funny thing is it works if there is a slave on the bus, but if you remove the slave, the kernel panics again.....
here are some errors i noticed earlier in the boot process:
| Code Sample |
hda: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplere Error} hda: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError} |
Posted by ke4nt1 on Nov. 14 2004,09:03
Does the drive, running as a single item on the bus, require a jumper to be set for "single" use, rather than a simple CS setting for the cable in use ?
73
ke4nt
Posted by mattjackets on Dec. 02 2004,05:32
nope, simple drive with three settings: master, slave and cs. i never use cs with old hardware....the drive is recognised in bios and gentoo can boot it (using grub) without another device on the bus. i've pretty much given up on getting this hardware setup working....so i just threw a scrap drie on as slave.....