Ok, googling about Linux using a PCI IDE controller and an onboard one the kernel sets PCI IDE0 to /dev/hda and then the mainboard's IDE0 = /dev/hde.
Due certain config needs and one drive that hates the PCI IDEs I have my drives arranged as PCI IDE0 = Linux, PCI IDE1 = DVD, IDE0 = Win, IDE1 = DVD
Normally when I boot this makes hda, hdc, hde, hdg. Fine.

Sometimes I reboot Linux and it does it the other way around (naturally it then can't find / when this happens... joy).

Why can't it decide what order this goes in? Worse, why has it in the past 24 hours decided that it will steadfastly refuse to see a PCI IDE as anything BUT hde even if I put ALL the drives on the card and turn the onboard channels completely off (Award BIOS so I can disable the IDE controllers)

EDIT: Sorry, got distracted, and hit submit before I was done:

Kernel is latest version in the Debian/Sid packages as of 21.5.06 2.6.16-10 I believe. (2.6.16-something anyway) and I use Lilo, and please don't suggest GRUB, believe me... if it didn't give me errors about the partition table I would use it (it's apparently not compatible with the BSD table format you can select when installing debian... go figure)

When your kernel got updated it might have change the option in the kernel for
"boot offboard chipsets first"

You could check this and change it. I've had a similar issue and I worked around it by using the e2label command to label the disks, and changing grub(sorry but its what i use ) to have a root device of

/dev/LABEL=root instead of the /dev/hda8

pretty sure lilo can do the same. Thats how they do it on RHEL so if the controlers and hard disks get messed up it still boots. Let us know how you get on and if you fix it.

Thanks, I'll give it a go. Gotta get a live CD burned to get into anyting more versitile than busybox. Vi and I don't get along, and it's hard to control lilo from it.

How convenient... it just finished d/ling. Well. ~crosses fingers~ here goes.

I give up.
I've spent the last day and a half or more in Windows . I have 0 patience left to fix this. I need some advise on 3 points because I'm just going to fix this the drastic way rewrite the partitions and resintall:
1) what is the best & Fastest way to back up 30ish GB spread across 4 partitions onto DVD-RWs?
I'm using the CD-ROM copy of Knoppix 4.02 if that tells you what programs I have available to me at the moment.

2) I've got more than 4 partitions and I liked the ... I guess elegance of the BSD partition table being able to just count consecutively and to not need extended partitions (funny... the lack of an extended partitions filled with logical partitions the data in those FSes seems to r/w faster). GRUB doesn't like the BSD table type though. Is there a partition table type that it would get along with that doesn't require extended partitions? Is fine if not, I'll just go back to the msdos table.

3) It's possible for / to be XFS. It's possible even for the /boot to be XFS with GRUB. But how do you INSTALL GRUB to one of these? It always crashes when I try.

Shame you gave up, but i'll have a go at the new questions

1) dont know, that reminds me I should back up

2) Ideal partioning is imho
1 Primary partiton (usually windows}
2 extended Partion (container for other partions)
3 linux boot partion (for grub)
5 swap partion
All partions after this point will be your choice, I run 2 distros so i have 2 / partions 1 for each distro.

P.s. On scsi/sata there is a 15 partition limitation, on IDE it is 40.

3) Yes, Root can be XFS JFS, whatever. If you look at your boot partion in /boot/grub. you will see stage files. If there is a file called xfs_stage_1_5, your grub can boot xfs. On my laptop I had the following Setup for Gentoo

/dev/hda1 Dell utility partition 50meg
/dev/hda2 Windows XP SP2
/dev/hda3 /boot (200MB ext2)
/dev/hda4 (((EXTENDED)))
/dev/hda5 / (XFS its a laptop, just treat the battery is like a portible UPS)

I built grub with the xfs use flag so i have a xfs stage. I'm not that fussy about the partion table after an install as it never gets used after that point. I like the BSD slices system also but it seems to be the source of all your problems? Do you really need it or just want it?

Cheer up, at least your not trying to install elilo into an EFI partition on an Itanium box. My hair goes grey just thinking about that one

I could just tar.bz them a few dirs at a time.. but that just takes SO long. I have a second drive for windoze. I keep to variations on / /tmp /home /mp3s swap. With occasional shifts to a /boot, /root, /var, etc... which is why I liked the BSD thing. I one time had only 6 or 7 partitions but they went out to hda11 because of the msdos scheme. Oh, I know it can be used I just can't figure out how to get it installed. grub-install when one of the partitions it'll have to be working with is XFS does funny things. The people who make XFS admit it does something very odd with XFS that causes that issue, but offer no ideas how to solve it. The people over at GNU don't seem aware of it to read the GRUB stuff there. I don't need it. Just rather like it. :-/ guess I'll use msdos's ideas unless I can find something else. True. I'm remembering now why I was happy that SuSE had introduced me to using GRUB in the first place. It's been years now since I used Lilo, and I'm wondering now how we ever got along back when it was the best boot loader Linux had.

Ok. So I've got a vanilla intall of etch. It's working, it's booting. I've got things all set up.
PCI IDE:
/dev/hda1 /boot
/dev/hda2 swap
/dev/hda3 extended
/dev/hda5 /
/dev/hda6 /home
/dev/hda7 /Music
/dev/hdc /media/dvdrw

Onboard IDE:
/dev/hde Win2k
/dev/hdg /media/dvdrom


So I switch my bios back to no booting from CDROM because it gets confused if I've left a music CD in there.
WHY if I put the boot order from CDROM,A,C to C only I now CANNOT get the PCI card to be the /dev/hda? I'm using GRUB so I try setting it to vmlinuz root=/dev/hde5 instead of a5.... either way I get some error where the kernel is panicing over trying to access beyond the end of /dev/hda2. If I try /dev/LABEL=/ (I let debinstall decide what to label things) it just hangs waiting for a response from the root fs . I'd by now just throw the stupid thing out the window and get a Mac.. but I'm broke, so I need a different idea.


BTW, why does bios boot order have odd affects on the kernel? I had a redhat 5.2 and mandrake 6.x install that wouldn't recognise an LS-120 drive unless I left the boot order A,CDROM,C. ASUS P5A, Award Bios if that actually has something to do with it.

Of course...
I set the boot order back to cdrom,a,c it STILL is suddenly looking for the drives PCI last. I TURNED OFF the onboard IDE controler. It still is looking in the wrong place... but at least now I don't get crap about /dev/hda2 causing a kernel panic.

I HAVEN'T CHANGE THE KERNEL WTF?!?! I don't get it. I was trying to compile a kernel with the "off-board IDE first=y" but my system locked up.

I swear, one more thing mysteriously changes and I'm going to give up. I like linux, hate Windows, love mac. I'll put up with win2k until my machine can be replaced and sold for scrap.

I remember reading somewhere a motherboard cannot handle more than two IDE ports on IRQ 14 and 15 respectively. Thus, additional IDE controllers cannot be added if there is one embedded. Maybe this information is outdated, not sure.

It's not anything to do with IRQs. The PCI IDE Controler is always on 12.