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Old 09-22-2001, 11:03 AM   #1
schifi
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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Chicago, IL
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Angry Linux does not recognize all my memory


I have 512 MB of SDRAM installed which are perfectly recognized by the BIOS and Win98. But Linux (RH7.0) seems to just recognize 64 MB according to free. And I can hear my harddisk doing a lot of swaping.

I am using an AMD Athlon 650 with the AMD chipset.

I'd appreciate a lot if anyody could give me a clue, since I have not the slightest idea right now what's going wrong!

Thanks,

Philipp

P.S. I tested two different sets of memory, 1x128 and 2x256, both tiems free shows a total of 64 MB
 
Old 09-22-2001, 04:49 PM   #2
linuxcool
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If you get a boot prompt when you boot up, enter at the prompt mem=512M. If it works, you can add the line append="mem=512M" to your lilo.conf file. Don't forget to run lilo after making changes to it.
 
Old 09-23-2001, 05:27 AM   #3
schifi
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Hi linuxcool,

Thank you for your help, I already tried the option suggested by you after doing some more research, and it works nicely. BUT: I am booting from a floppy, and if I add something to floppy/etc/lilo.conf and run linux with the image and config file on the floppy, my system can't boot anymore at all!
I guess part of my problem is my FastTrack66 IDE Controller, configured as a RAID 0. It took me some time to get linux running with it at all, and I still can't boot from harddisk. Now, after running lilo with the floppy, the system hangs at startup with the same screen as when booting from harddrive. Some IDE problem shit.

Is it actually the lilo in the mbr that is started when booting from floppy?

Thanks,

schifi
 
Old 09-25-2001, 01:28 AM   #4
linuxcool
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When you boot from a floppy, it doesn't use the program in the mbr of the hard drive. As for getting back into your system, this link here may help.

The FastTrack66 IDE Controller and others like always seem to cause trouble for people. Try here and here . I hope this helps.
 
Old 09-25-2001, 03:57 AM   #5
Q25
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aaahhh... bong

I'm gonna cancel my order on the FastTrak100.. I really don't need anymore trouble with my Linux server..

Any suggestions on something that'll work without giving me a headache?
 
Old 09-25-2001, 07:05 AM   #6
schifi
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Thanks for the advice, I actually allready managed to get back by running the installation CD and "update" the system. This gave me the opportunity to make a new boot disk.

I am not so unhappy with booting from a floppy and my system then works really fine, but I really would like to get the boot disk to recognize my memory. So how can I add this "append" statement and make it be considered? And can I

FDISK /MBR

and still boot from floppy? Because I don't need the LILO in the mbr anymore if I don't boot from harddrive, right?

Thanks,

schifi
 
Old 09-25-2001, 11:36 PM   #7
linuxcool
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Yes, you can use the msdos command fdisk /mbr to remove lilo from the mbr since you are using the boot disk instead.

The ' append ' statement can be added like this:

Sample lilo.conf file

boot=/dev/hda6
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=300
default=win

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
root=/dev/hda6
append="mem=512M"
read-only

other=/dev/hda1
label=win
table=/dev/hda

If there is an ' append ' line already there, then add your parameter to it like this:

Old line: append="hdc=ide-scsi"
New line: append="hdc=ide-scsi mem=512M"

Don't forget to run /sbin/lilo as root.

You might want to keep checking to see if you can boot from your hard drive. You may only need some parameters added to your lilo.conf file. If you looked at the links I gave you, the process isn't too complicated. You run the command cat /proc/pci and get the necessary four numbers and then put them into a form like this: ide2=a,b+2 ide3=c,d+2. If it works, then you can put this in the ' append ' statement in lilo.conf. I hope this helps.

Last edited by linuxcool; 09-25-2001 at 11:38 PM.
 
Old 09-25-2001, 11:46 PM   #8
linuxcool
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Q25, I didn't mean to imply that there is something wrong with the card. It's just that linux usually recognizes these types of cards and can most of the time install to them, but when it comes to booting from them, they can't seem to find them. People get kernel panic messages. It may be possible to get then working by supplying linux some info as to where the card is located. I believe that people are usually able to boot with the emergency disk.
 
Old 09-27-2001, 08:53 AM   #9
schifi
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I tried the "ide2= a,b+2(,irq) ide3=" kernel parameters, and it just doesn't look much different. The system hangs during boot up. I also downloaded the very latest kernel 2.4.10, which contains a "Support Promise FastTrack" build option, but it is the same ol story. Quite frustrating ... I am not even sure anymore if I understand the problem.Though some IDE stuff are the last lines reported at boot time before it hangs.

So I guess I'll keep booting from floppy for a while ...
 
Old 09-28-2001, 06:57 AM   #10
ugge
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I managed to make a really fast solution.
To make it work you have to install lilo to your linux disk or your linux partition.
Edit the /etc/lilo.conf file so that all things point to the right positions of your disk, then run the command /sbin/lilo (need to be logged in as root).
Now put in an empty formated diskette and run the command
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1

This will copy the first 512 bytes of your first disk to the boot sector of the floppy. Modify /dev/hda in above command to point to the place you install the lilo boot sector, that is the path found as boot= in lilo.conf
If your motherboard and BIOS can reach your ide controller correctly you should now be able to reboot with the floppy and the lilo prompt will show up.
By doing this the very first part of lilo is loaded from floppy and the rest is loaded from your hard disk.
It worked for me right now, but if there are any trouble please post error messages and the content of your /etc/lilo file.
 
  


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