Hi,

my problem is that when I try to install RH8 just after the please select install type (text or graphical), the install gives me a Kernel Panic and I can't use keyboard etc. to go up so all I can see is "error in code hpt366.c: *some number*" and something about the processor not being tainted.

I took this to mean that the problem is with the driver for my raid controller, an onboard highpoint 374.

My pc is an epox 8K5A3+, XP2100+, 256MB3200DDR and on the raid controller I have two 13gig hdd's: Quantum Fireball KA & KX.

Is there a way to load a driver for the raid before I start the install?? or at least stop the install from trying to detect the wrong driver?

Thankyou,

Savage1.

Please if you could help at all...

I have done another couple of day's research and found the highpoint driver and tried to install it many times.

At the boot: prompt of RH8.0 install I type:-

linux text expert hde=noprobe hdf=noprobe (etc) hdl=noprobe

to try to stop linux install from probing the raid array, like the instructions say, but it does not work I get the same error.

I have removed the hd from my normal ide channels (as per instructions), just to make sure it was not in the way.

I have also had problems with RH7.1 install but its still not the ver. that I want to use.

If anyone has got this controller (hpt374) to install ANY linux distro please tell me how, so far I have had no luck.

Thanks,

Lee.

I have figured a way to get SuSE 8.1 Professional loaded on my 80GB drive connected to ide3. It is involved, and would require a long explanation, but if you are interested I try to send you the details. This involves downloading the hpt374 driver from High Point, and compiling it for the linux version 2.4.19-4GB used for SuSE. I have this version
loaded on another box, and it worked. Put the driver on a floppy and using text install manually on the SuSE boot up i was able to get the driver working and installed SuSE 8.1.
Now however, I don't have it set so that the machine boots directly into SuSE with out having to add the hpt374 driver for each bootup. This is a dual boot setup with Win2K needed for work. Anyway hope this helps

I have two 80G HD connect to the raid controler. (the first two ports) and installed RH8.0 with this driver (from HighPoint) . everything works just fine.

I don't have any other HDs, only two CDRW connected to the IDE1 and IDE2.

hope this helps.

efurban

You can add drivers at install time by typing "linux dd" at the install boot prompt. The install will then ask for a driver disk.

Now for the hard part. There are several different driver disk images on the first install CD in the images directory with the boot images. I think "drvblock.img" is one of them. Copying one of these images to a floppy creates a driver disk. You will either need to add your driver to an existing driver disk or create a new one.

Did the site where you got the driver have instructtions for creating a driver disk? If so, your'e in luck. If not...

There are several files besides the driver on the disks. modinfo, modules.dep and pcitable need to be altered for your new driver and your driver.o file needs to be added to the modules.cgz (gzipped cpio archive). I've putzed around with this for network drivers, but not raid. Good luck.

Hey efurban,
I have tried the normal method you suggested and I cannot stop rh8 install from trying to load the hpt366.c and failing can you tell me how you boot -> step by step <- until you get to the first install screen, Language selection I think.

Thankyou,

Lee.

sorry I forgot to tell you that I upgraded the HPT374 bios too. (to the version which included in the driver zip file)

0. upgrade your bios
1. copy all the files from /driver/i686 to a floppy disk.
actually, i really just followed the steps which described in Install_RedHat_HPT374.pdf file. it's in the Doc foler. read it carefully.

Let me know if you have more problmes.

did you read my first post, is this what you did?

I installed the latest bios I could find 2. something I think.

And I cannot get far enough in the install to use the driver disk.

HIGHPOINT's instructions didn't work for me...

I WILL try again but is there anything wrong with my first post, that is how I interpret the instructions.

Thanks,

Lee.

My Motherboard is ABIT IT7 and I have no problem with it at all.
Dont really know where your problem is at. sorry .

You may wanna try other linux distribution which supported by Highpoint. (check their web site)

Im having some problems with my setup..

Gigabyte GA-6bxd dual p3 500
rocket raid 404 / hpt374 chip
Red Hat 8

I installed RedHat 8 onto 4 30gb drives on my RocketRaid using the Redhat 8.0 drivers/instructions on Highpoints site...

Now that all seemed to work fine, but when I boot grub hangs like
..

Grub...

I have the boot disk I created which boots fine, but it dosent have the smp kernel on the boot disk.

How can I fix/any ideas why Grub hangs?
Could I just create an smp boot disk, how would I do that?

Otherwize the RocketRaid 404 seemed to install fine, ie drives are shown as sda1 sda2 etc.

Ive also got a Matrox G450 dual head video card, would this cause grub to hang?

Thanks

I have a similar problem. Grub doesn't hang for me but after the install and reboot, RH8 says to "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device"

Using the RAID bios config utility I've set my channel 1 master as the boot device (I have 2 WD 1200JB ide drives, each set to master on channels 1 and 2 using RAID 1). I'm running bios version 1.21 and haven't loaded any additional drivers on the system.

RH never seems to find the boot sector on the hdd no matter if i use Grub or lilo but it will find my boot disk on my 1.44 floppy, boot from there and then bring up the rest of my system. My partitions look good and everything seems to be in place .... the system just won't boot from the hard disks.

Any help is much appreciated...

Updated my RAID disk drivers according to the HPT374 redhat linux installation guide and upgraded my RAID controller bios to v1.23 but it still won't boot from my hdd. Boots fine from floppy recovery disk and recognizes RAID drives, but still no joy.