Wont boot when two RH9.0 hdd's. i.e. one master and one slave.

joel777 · 04-23-2004, 03:03 PM

Using a new Intel dual processor machine we need to boot on one RH9.0 disk and have another mounted as a slave. But, it won't boot.
With RH 7.2 this was not a problem.
Also, we can boot with RH.0 as master and XP as slave or XP as master and Linux RH9.0 as slave.
But when we install both Linux RH9.0 drives and strap one as master and one as slave, no boot.
Kernel is: 2.4.20-6smp

aaa · 04-23-2004, 03:11 PM

Please elaborate on your setup. How many hd's are there? What os's are on them?

joel777 · 04-23-2004, 03:35 PM

There are 2 hdd's. We use those sliding rail removable drives.
The problem (no-boot) occurs when both drives contain RH9.0, and we strap 1 as master and 1 as slave.

If I put the RH9.0 master in and put an XP drive in as slave, it will boot.

zaphodiv · 04-23-2004, 03:53 PM

How far does it get?
IS there an error message?

joel777 · 04-23-2004, 04:20 PM

The error message says something like "INIT respawning too fast".
Problem is, this machine is in our lab where there is no internet, so my error description is from my memory. I can duplicate the error probably on Monday and get more details if needed.

zaphodiv · 04-24-2004, 01:07 AM

The linux kernel has loaded and started, its dieing in the startup stuff.

Is the BIOS detecting the drive size correctly?

It may be related to mounting the partitions.
Perhaps it is booting from the second HD then getting confused.
I'd try using fdisk to mark the partitions on the slave drive as inactive.

I think we need to see the exact error messages including whatever happens
before init starts looping.
You can hit ctrl-s and ctrl-Q to halt the messages scrolling up the screen.