upon installing 4 2TB drives, my server will not boot. I have tried booting from a slackware 11 dvd and passing these boot paramaters:

huge26.s root=/dev/sda1 noinitrd ro

in addition to just trying to boot from the DVD using the huge26.s kernel.

the kernel starts to load and says "Ready." Then sits there with a flashing cursor... The problem only exists with the new 2TB drives installed. I never had any problems when I had 750GB drives installed. Also, everything works fine if I boot from the DVD using "huge26.s root=/dev/sda1 noinitrd ro" as boot paramaters, and insert the 4 2TB drives (hot add) after the system starts booting.

Any ideas?

I have also tried booting from a backtrack 3 cd but experience the same problem (boot halt after loading initrd)

Sounds like a Bios issue or some mb limitation. Remember we're on grub at that stage, so grub or lilo might need an update

Any chance you could throw the /boot or even the entire install on another small drive and boot off that? Then when the system is running, it will probably find them

I have the OS on a smaller drive. I cant even boot from the DVD with the drives installed. If the drives are removed I can boot from the DVD w/o any problems. I've tried a zillion different configurations in the BIOS but haven't had any luck!

I have something weird like that atm, If I have a certain usb card reader plugged in I can't boot off hd.

Anyhow, Power supply is an option. My voltage lines are 12.37V, 4,86V, 3.4V something else. My point is that the 4.8 is low because, in all probability, as much as it can give is being used. The others are high because they're ok. That might affect 'power good' and you'd never boot.

It isn't one of these is it...

The 2 TB HDDs are not by any chance ones with GPT partitioning tables that lack an MBR and requiring a kernel with GPT support? If so and you can't boot them, you can partition them so that they will have a hybrid MBR that should be seen by your BIOS.

If you use the command "fdisk -l", you should see a notation of any GPT partitions in the results. The Internet will give you more information on using a bootloader with a hybrid MBR.

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/fdisk-...eater-2tb.html

thorkelljarl Since you said you can boot the system up with the drives removed do that, passing the extra parameters you mentioned to the kernel, the hotadd the drives and run the commands.

the partitions are of type FD (linux raid autodectect). I don't think I explained the problem correctly the first time...

There is no boot information on any of these disks (2TB Western Digital), they are strictly for storage (samba). The kernel and initrd are on a separate (smaller) raid1 array. The problem occurs just by having the disks plugged in eg: booting gets halted/frozen even if trying to boot from a live cd.

I hope that helps!

How big is your psu? As well as your box, it's running 6 drives. Will the box boot with one of the 2TB drives installed?

The case has the capacity for 8 hot-swappable drives. 760W PSU. It WILL boot with ONE drive installed, as long as it is connected to the onboard sata controller. If more than 1 of the drives is plugged into the onboard sata controller it does not boot; also if one of the drives is connected to a sata expansion card, it does not boot -- even if trying to boot a live cd.

If it's properly proportioned, 760W sounds ok. It could be low in one line, but I can't guess from here. That would explain a lot. I have a box here, with mobo, Athlon@2GHZ, one drive, one cdrom, and a radeon HD4650 video card. The 420W psu was grand until the radeon card came along, and now the 5V is borderline.

There is a 'Power Good' line which is digital(low or high), and it must be saying the power is good before you can boot. Can you borrow a bigger PSU & try it?

Hi,

I had to re-read the thread two times. Here's the problem: note the underlined text above. My money is with the second controller not having the driver/firmware available thus the hold/lock.

You should boot with the LiveCD/DVD with one drive connected to the onboard controller. Then do a 'lspci -vv' to identify the SATA expansion card. You did not tell us until now about the expansion card!

That's why I always suggest that everyone should look at 'How to Ask Questions the Smart Way' so in the future the queries provide information that will aid us in diagnosis of the problem/query.



Once identified then you can check that the kernel modules are available for use. My money is on the missing module.

You could create a 'initrd' to boot the system if the module is available.

lspci --vv results for the sata expansion card:

04:08.0 RAID bus controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3114 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Silicon Image, Inc. Unknown device 7114
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 32, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 5
Region 0: I/O ports at 9c00 [size=8]
Region 1: I/O ports at 9800 [size=4]
Region 2: I/O ports at 9400 [size=8]
Region 3: I/O ports at 9000 [size=4]
Region 4: I/O ports at 8c00 [size=16]
Region 5: Memory at fdbfe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Expansion ROM at fda00000 [disabled] [size=512K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-

The card never had any problems in the past when I had the 750GB drives plugged into it, could it still be a problem?

Hi,

Why not try Slackware 13.1? You will find the newer Sil drivers in 13.1 for the kernel.

I finally solved it...

I had to update the bios for the SiI 3114 sata controller.

the bios readme states:
IV. Corrected Problems
1. System may hang during a quick, low level format
2. System BIOS may incorrectly identify the RAID volume.
3. Fdisk may fail to recognize the RAID volume.
4. Option ROM (BIOS) configuration utility would not allow the addition of a 2TB spare drive.
5. Device with SiI3811 may not be recognized during RAID configuration.

seems like corrected problem #4 was applicable