Hello,
I'm completely new at linux, and have encountered some roadblocks attempting to install Red Hat 7.3 onto my PC which uses an Abit KR7A-133R motherboard. This motherboard uses a High Point HPT372 IDE RAID controller. Although I am just using it as extra IDE channels with my primary (boot) hard drive connected to it. (no RAID setup)
After reading all the posts here regarding HPT37x controllers, I now know that RH7.3 does not natively support the HPT372 controller. So I went and got the RH 7.3 driver for the HPT372 from Highpoints web site. Unzipping the downloaded driver, I find that there is a nice pdf file in there detailing the installation instructions. Yipee! I had absolutely no problems during the install, until I got to step 13 in the High Point driver install instructions. (The unlucky step? *lol*) To save some time I will just copy step 13 directly from the pdf file and paste it below.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
13)
(HPT370/372 only) If you are installing Red Hat Linux 7.1/7.2/7.3 onto hard disk(s) attached to HPT370 or HPT372, when “Installation Complete” dialog appears, an additional step must be taken to replace the installed kernel with our new kernel, which has HPT366 IDE support removed. On the driver disk, there is a setup script "postinstall" which will do this work for you. When the "Installation Complete " dialog appears, DO NOT press ENTER. Press Alt-F2 to activate the command shell and type in the following commands:
for Red Hat Linux 7.1/7.2/7.3
# chroot /mnt/sysimage
# mkdir /mnt/floppy
insert UP kernel diskette
# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
# cp /mnt/floppy/vmlinuz.hpt37x2 /boot
# umount /mnt/floppy
insert SMP kernel diskette smp system only
# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy smp system only
# cp /mnt/floppy/vmlinuz.hpt37x2smp /boot smp system only
# umount /mnt/floppy smp system only
insert driver diskette
# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
# sh /mnt/floppy/postinstall
# umount /mnt/floppy
Then press Alt-F1 to return to the setup screen and press ENTER to finish setup.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just to be clear, I did not follow the SMP line commands, as I do not have an SMP system.
My problem is that if I typed the line commands exactly as shown, being mindfull of spaces in the line, nothing would happen. No error message, it would just goto the next line down waiting for the next command. I know this can't be right as it never even accessed the floppy drive, and I know has to at two points.
So I started experimenting a bit, and found that the install would respond to the command line if I removed the # sign in front of the line. But then the very first command line,
# chroot /mnt/sysimage
would give me an error message. I'm sorry I forgot to write the error message down. But it was something to the extent of "there is no such directory". So, anyway, I moved on and was able to get the second and third command lines to appear to work.
# mkdir /mnt/floppy
# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
The second line offered no complaints. And the third line briefly accessed the floppy drive. So it looks like those two worked.
But these following two lines refused to work in any shape or form that I could think of.
# cp /mnt/floppy/vmlinuz.hpt37x2 /boot
# sh /mnt/floppy/postinstall
I know this because, the first line appears to be a copy command to take the kernal from the UP kernal diskette, and the second line appears to be a line to execute the postinstall setup script. And it never accessed the floppy drive at all. And it depending how I typed the line in would either do nothing, or give me an error.
So as you can see I'm quite lost at this point. I get the feeling that I am overlooking something really obvious, but I'm not sure as this is all new. I understand the syntax of the command line is very important, and tried extra hard to make sure the spaces were in the right spots, and everything was typed correctly.
So where have I gone wrong?
If necessary, I will go back and document the different error messages that I received from lines 1, 4, and 7. But I was hoping that this might be something stupidly obvious that I am overlooking.
Hope someone can help me out. Thanks. Take care.
)