Fedora boot hangs when it cannot find a floppy
 

Hi. I am attempting to install Fedora Core 1 on a Sony laptop (PCG-R505TL). The laptop has no disk drives, so I installed using a CD-drive attached via PCMCIA. After some problems recognizing the CD drive, I was able to get the installation to work by entering

ide2=0x160,0x386 nopcmcia nousb

The installation seemed to go fine. The problem occurs when I reboot following the installation. The boot goes fine at first, until the machine reaches this point:

insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/block/floppy.o: init_module: No such device
insmod: Hint: insmod errors may be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters
you may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/block/floppy.o: insmod block-major-2 failed
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 01:02:0
Please try using pci=biosirq
ds: no socket drivers loaded

At this point the boot hangs and nothing happens.

I am totally new to linux, but my guess is that linux is either looking for a floppy drive which it cannot find (because there isnt one) OR linux is trying to deal with the stupid memorystick drive.

From googling I have found that people with similar issues have been able to repair them by adding "alias floppy off" to /etc/modules.conf.

Since I am trying to learn how to use the system, I would like to understand exactly what this would do, as well as how to do it (if it would work). I am able to boot from CD in rescue mode.

Many thanks, and any other tips would be much appreciated.

Please write to penseur at myway dot com

I think your right.

I couldn't find any specific docs, but I guess this is pretty much telling the kernel not to bother trying to load the floppy driver. I had a look at floppy.txt in the kernel docs but there is no option ie: "floppy=noprobe" like there is for ide disks. Try the alias line in modules.conf. If this still doesn't work then a sure-fire way to get rid of this problem is to build a new kernel _without_ floppy support. This is what I did with my new workstation which I didn't bother to install a floppy in.

It still troubles me that this is making Fedora stop booting. It seems to me that the kernel should give up and move on when it doesn't find a floppy controller. I installed gentoo on a laptop with no floppy and never had a problem...

Anyways, it would definitely appear that fedora is trying to load the floppy module. Have a look at the modules.conf line and try to disable it.