new motherboard giving problems loading linux

Seiken · 03-29-2005, 09:21 AM

Long story short: my old motherboard (Soltek SL-85DRS2) kept crapping out. The final time, it just froze up (while in KDE), and my only option was to hit the reset button. After that, the computer would not boot.

I picked up an Asus P4P800SE and popped all my hardware into it. When Linux (Slackware 10.1) tries to start now (after lilo), I get the following... this is just the last bit since I was copying by pen/paper:

Code:

hda: WDC WD800JB-00CRA1, ATA DISK drive
hdb: WDC200BB-60CJA0, ATA DISK drive
blk: queue c03ad460, I/O limit 4095 Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
blk: queue c03ad59c, I/O limit 4095 Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hdc: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4040B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: JLMS XJ-HD166S, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0xeff0-0xeff7,0xefeb on irq 5
ide1 at 0xefa8-0xefaf,0xefe2 on irq 5
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: host protected area => 1

Then it hangs at that last hda line. Even if boot from the Slackware 10.1 Install Disc 1, it still hangs at that hda line. From the Intall Disc 1, I have tried booting with a few different kernels: boot.i, bootacpi.i, and ataraid.i (even though I'm not using my SATA/RAID)

Luckily, I had that spare 20GB hard drive with XP on it. Ultimately, I'd like to go back to Slack and just have this XP drive for audio production. So... any ideas on why I can't boot Linux (or even install it considering the disc hangs in the same spot)?

Thanks

keefaz · 03-29-2005, 09:47 AM

How do look like the IDE drives settings, master/slave or cable select ?

Also did you try swap them or disconnect the XP drive ?

Seiken · 03-29-2005, 10:05 AM

both hard drives are set to cable select. linux drive is actually on the master position of the cable, and xp on the slave position. my BIOS allows me to choose which one to boot from anyway though, so it doesn't really matter.

with both drives on cable select, linux on master position of cable, and BIOS set to boot from that linux drive, I get the error.

I will try disconnecting the XP drive and write back what happens.

Seiken · 03-29-2005, 10:22 AM

Same hang when I only have the Linux drive connected.

Should I be concerned that the hard drive itself is screwed (from when my old mobo gave up), or does this just seem like a config issue?

keefaz · 03-29-2005, 10:38 AM

Did you try to boot with slackware 2nd CD ?

Seiken · 03-29-2005, 11:00 AM

2nd CD doesn't seem to be bootable. it just skips past it and loads XP instead.

I'm going to bring the Linux hard drive into work tonight and see how it goes on a test machine there. At least I'll know if it's a problem with the hard drive or not that way (since I've brought it in before and it booted fine).

Until work starts, I guess I'll search around Google and wait for responses on here

Thanks btw, for your help so far.

iscurrah · 03-29-2005, 11:36 AM

I checked my own log files - I once got that message, but the system proceeded to boot correctly anyway ... I'd guess that that last line is a red herring. Maybe the thing after it causes the problem.

Code:

Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel: ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel: ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel: hda: attached ide-disk driver. 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel: hda: host protected area => 1 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel: hdb: attached ide-disk driver. 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel: hdb: host protected area => 1 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel: hdd: attached ide-cdrom driver. 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel: kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob last message repeated 2 times 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel:    8regs     :  1082.000 MB/sec 
Mar  5 15:18:47 bob kernel:    32regs    :   724.800 MB/sec
...

Try going into your BIOS, making sure that the drives are in LBA mode (if appropriate) and autodetect their parameters... Other than that suggestion, I can't help... sorry...

egag · 03-29-2005, 11:50 AM

...and while you are in the bios -settings, switch off any virus-protection.
if it 's used., the mbr is not writable.
( not sure if it's still used in bios, but just to be sure... )

egag

Seiken · 03-29-2005, 09:51 PM

I tried the drive at work and it's fine, so it is definitely something with my home setup.

Back home now:
Drives are set to LBA mode, parameters are auto-detected, and BIOS virus protection is disabled. They were already like this, so I didn't have to change anything.

I changed my IDE settings to Legacy instead of Enhanced (at least I think it was the IDE settings), and it got past the "host protected area => 1" line (at least 4 screens of 80x25 past), but hung here instead:

Code:

sh-2006: reiserfs read_super_block: bread failed (dev 03:02, block 64, size 1024)
sh-2021: reiserfs_read_super: can not find reiserfs on ide0(3,2)
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:02

Seiken · 03-30-2005, 07:59 AM

I flashed my BIOS to the latest available on Asus's site.

When booting from the Slackware 10.1 Install Disc 1, it fully boots and gives me a login prompt. Great.

When booting from the Linux hard drive, it now gets past the "host protected area => 1" line (GREAT!), but I get a Kernel panic error soon after. Here is as much of the startup messages as I could stand to copy via pen/paper. I started copying at the first error message:

Code:

kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
md: linear personality registered as nr 1
md: raid0 personality registered as nr 2
md: raid1 personality registered as nr 3
md: raid5 personality registered as nr 4
raid5: measuring checksumming speed
   8regs     :  2739.600 MB/sec
   32regs    :  1703.200 MB/sec
   pIII_sse  :  3097.600 MB/sec
   pII_mmx   :  2743.200 MB/sec
   p5_mmx    :  2694.000 MB/sec
raid5: using function: pIII_sse (3097.60 MB/ec)
md: driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
LVM version 1.0.8(17/11/2003)
Initializing Cryptographic API
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32 Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)
Linux IP multicase router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:02: rw:0, want=2, limit=1
EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:02: rw:0, want=2, limit=1
EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
FAT: bogus logical sector size 16896
UMSDOS: msdos_read_super failed, mount aborted.
FAT: bogus logical sector size 16896
FAT: bogus logical sector size 16896
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:02: rw=0, want=33, limit=1
isofs_read_super: bread_failed, dev=03:02, iso_blknum=16, block=32
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:02: rw=0, want=0, limit=1
sh-2006: reiserfs read_super_block: bread failed (dev 03:02, block 8, size 1024)
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:02: rw=0, want=65, limit=1
sh-2006: reiserfs read_super_block: bread failed (dev 03:02, block 64, size 1024)
sh-2021: reiserfs_read_super: can not find reiserfs on ide(3,2)
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:02

I'm not even using the SATA/RAID on the new motherboard, so I don't know what all those RAID messages are all about. About the EXT3-fs, isofs, UMSDOS, FAT, etc. messages, here was my setup before the old motherboard went kaput:
swap (Linux swap), / (ReiserFS), /home (ReiserFS), /usr/local (ReiserFS), and /tmp (ReiserFS).

It's just weird that the Install Disc 1 boots with the default bare.i kernel... and when I installed Slack, I just let it use the kernel it had been using so far (ie: didn't specify anything different).

iscurrah · 03-30-2005, 12:58 PM

The next obvious question... is all your data backed up ? Please say 'Yes' ;-)

You said that your disk worked OK at work - did you boot from it or just mount it from a different installation ?

When you boot from the CD, can you get as far as mounting all the HD partitions correctly ? If not, can you mount them individually ?

Do you still have the old motherboard ? You could reinstall it, connect the drive and check in the BIOS what it's HDD settings are. Maybe your new MB uses LBA mode for the HDD, but the old MB used a different access method - so the disk layout appears to be wrong when the system boots with the new MB.

... clutching at straws time I'm afraid ...

Seiken · 03-30-2005, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by iscurrah
The next obvious question... is all your data backed up ? Please say 'Yes' ;-)

You said that your disk worked OK at work - did you boot from it or just mount it from a different installation ?

When you boot from the CD, can you get as far as mounting all the HD partitions correctly ? If not, can you mount them individually ?

Do you still have the old motherboard ? You could reinstall it, connect the drive and check in the BIOS what it's HDD settings are. Maybe your new MB uses LBA mode for the HDD, but the old MB used a different access method - so the disk layout appears to be wrong when the system boots with the new MB.

... clutching at straws time I'm afraid ...

My data isn't backed up, but I didn't have anything really important on there anyway. Mostly just a bunch of manga and anime that can all be downloaded again.

I booted from the disk at work.

When booting from the CD, I'm not sure how to go about mounting the HD partitions. Could you explain this further for me so I can try it?

I still have the old motherboard. The only LBA settings on the new one though are [Auto] and [Disabled].

So assuming I will have to reintall on this thing... my /home and /usr/local are on other partitions. So does that mean I won't lose my personal files and applicaitons?

Thanks once again for all the help.

iscurrah · 03-30-2005, 03:11 PM

Hi, going backwards through your last post...

It looks to my like your new configuration does not comprehend the partitions on your HDD. It's not just the contents of one data partition, but at least your root (/) partition, containing /etc and lots of nice configuration settings... I suspect that if you have to reinstall, you'd do better to erase, repartition and reformat the whole disk beforehand... But don't give up and get to that stage yet... Luckily you can copy all your data and settings and stuff at work...

In my Award Bios (Soltek mb !) my IDE Primary Master is configured to Auto, but could be None, or Manual. Auto is the obvious choice.
my Access mode is configured to be LBA, but could be CHS, Large or Auto. For each, my CHS (Cylinder, Head, Sector) values are different.

Code:

Mode  Cyl    Head  Sect
LBA   14593  255   66
CHS   57461  16    255
Large 3830   240   255
Auto  57461  16    255

All of the above refer total to a 120Gb disk.

Maybe your disk was formatted under different CHS values to your current default. It's worth checking - even though I think the kernel usually ignores the Bios settings. So check the CHS value on both the old and the new mbs.

If you can boot from the install CD, login as root, cd to /mnt

Code:

cd /mnt

and create a few temporary mount points

Code:

mkdir oldroot
mkdir oldhome
mkdir oldlocal
mkdir oldtmp

then try to mount these partitions from your disk (I'm assuming that it is your primary IDE master drive (hda) and the partition numbers I'm using are guesses). You could get more information by running 'fdisk /dev/hda' at this point, and using 'p' to print the current partition table, then 'q' to quit fdisk. (If I got that wrong, 'h' gives a command help).

Code:

mount /dev/hda1 oldroot
mount /dev/hda3 oldhome
mount /dev/hda4 oldlocal
mount /dev/hda5 oldtmp

If one or more of these give error messages, you can see which partitions have problems.

Good luck !

Seiken · 03-30-2005, 04:15 PM

Awesome. I will try all this out when I get home (4.5 hours from now!)

Seiken · 03-31-2005, 08:31 AM

So I was able to mount everything, and backed up what I needed to my FAT32 storage partition (on the XP drive.)

I've deleted and recreated the partitions on my Linux drive, and installed Slack 10.1 on it. Lilo all works great and I can boot into either OS. My new problem (probably a very simple fix) is: when I boot into Linux, I have no Internet connection. I ran netconfig again and told it to use DHCP but I still get nothing:

Code:

# ping -c 3 www.google.com
ping: unknown host www.google.com
# ifconfig
lo        Link encap: Local Loopback
          inet addr: 127.0.0.1  Mask: 255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes: 1896 (1.8 Kb)  TX bytes:1896 (1.8 Kb)

Wasn't sure if this should be put in a new thread or not, since it's a different topic now.