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Old 12-06-2002, 07:30 AM   #1
azjazz
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Question Problem swapping IDE Master/Slave


Hello -

I need to swap my hard drive / CD-ROM IDE Master/Slave configuration due to short cable lengths.

I installed RH 8.0 while the hard drive was in the Master location, and now I need the hard drive to be the Slave.

When I try to boot Linux now, I get a "Kernel Panic" error.

How can I solve this problem?

Note: This is a dual-boot system using WinXP and RH 8.0. My Boot Manager is Acronis OS Selector 8.0 (awesome product!), with LILO ("disabled" with a delay of 0.1 sec) on the Linux side.

Thanks!

azjazz
 
Old 12-06-2002, 07:53 AM   #2
ianv
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Howdy,
erm,
try " linux root=/dev/hdbX " ( without quotes ) at the lilo prompt
where X is the partition number of / on the drive
You will have to go in and change your /etc/fstab and your /etc/lilo.conf to reflect the changed location of your root partition i.e. change all of the hda's to hdb's

IDE0 = /dev/hda (master) /dev/hdb (slave)
IDE1 = /dev/hdc (master) /dev/hdd (slave)
Don't know about cable select - I think this assumes only one device on the bus and uses hda / hdc as appropriate.
As it gets as far as a Kernel panic it is at least finding your boot area and trying to load I guess it falls over whaen it looks for root partition in old location.
If this doesn't work pls post more info & we'll take another look
HTH
Ian

HTH
 
Old 12-06-2002, 07:55 AM   #3
ianv
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Sorry,
didn't read that you didn't use lilo - same solution ( I guess) point references to your root partition to the new location on hdb rather than hda.
Still can't understand why U swapped them around though??
Pls explain more...
bfn
ian
 
Old 12-07-2002, 02:37 AM   #4
azjazz
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I swapped my hard drive to the Slave position for two reasons:

1) I have a full tower case. In order to have my hard drive as the Master, I had to use a really long IDE cable that required multiple cable ties to keep it from hitting fans. Even still, it heavily restricted airflow.

2) To significantly improve the speed of my CD Burner, I wanted to set my hard drive on one IDE Bus and the CD Burner on the other (seperate IRQs). This new layout also mandated the hard drive -> Slave position.

That said, I am still having problems.

My root is located on hda7 when connected to the Master, so I assumed (possibly erroneously) that I should be on hdb7 for the Slave. (Note: I did try partition values 0->9 when 7 didn't work anyways).

I typed "linux root=/dev/hdbX" (X started at 7, then other values afterwards)

I saw the following at the bottom for each attempt:

kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k ide-disk, errno = 2
hdb: driver not present
VFS: Cannot open root device "hdbX" or 03:4X
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:4X


Then it locked up.

Any ideas?

azjazz
 
Old 12-07-2002, 12:07 PM   #5
whansard
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boot with a ilnux cdrom, then mount
your distribution and make the changes
like
mkdir /mnt/b7
mount /dev/hdb7 /mnt/b7

edit fstab and change the a's to b's
edit your lilo.conf and changeem too
then
chroot /mnt/b7 lilo
 
Old 12-09-2002, 01:15 AM   #6
azjazz
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Well, I was able to boot and mount and chroot, but I still couldn't get Linux to boot up after making the changes.

After modifying and running lilo, my system now appears to be locking up in the middle of printing out the initial "Loading vmlinuz ......" message.

Am I scrood?

azjazz
 
Old 12-09-2002, 04:10 AM   #7
whansard
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i don't think you're getting everything changed you
need to in lilo.conf
but i think you could still use the old rdev command
mount your linux however then
get to the kernel and
rdev /dev/hdb7 /mnt/linux/boot/vmlinuz
or whevever that kernel is

i still think you need to make lilo boot from
the root of your parition, like change the boot
and the root to hdb7 or whatever it is.
you may be changing the root, but not the boot.
 
Old 12-09-2002, 10:32 AM   #8
arnold
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why did you swap master/slave? this can be set by jumpers at the
rear of the drive, independant of cable position?
 
Old 12-09-2002, 12:22 PM   #9
ianv
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I agree arnold,
If the ide disc and cdrom are going onto different IDE buses, and they are the only ide devices on each of the buses, then for performance I have always set them to cable select as then there is no constant polling of master & slave. If ultimate performance is sought perhaps a look at hdparms is required?
Azjazz,
if the hard-disc & cdrom are the only ide devices in the system and that you def have 2 (ide0,ide1) ide buses - I would set both to cable select (cs, rather than ma or sl - jumpers on rear of units) and they should be get increased performance. (HD = hda , CDR = hdc )
"Master location" is only to do with the jumper on the unit not which idc connector you use on the ide ribbon cable.
This is exactly the same as I have mine.
Let us know how you get on.
HTH
Ian
 
Old 12-09-2002, 01:02 PM   #10
whansard
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the master is supposed to be at the end of the cable,
not in the middle. the newer 80 pin ide cables are
even labeled that way. It can work both ways, but
you are more suceptible to signal noise from other
stuff in the computer.
 
Old 12-09-2002, 11:46 PM   #11
azjazz
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Still having problems.

I'm pretty sure that there needs to be a "Master" on each cable, and I have 4 devices (the current scrood-up configuration):

Primary:

Master - CD Writer
Slave - Hard drive

Secondary:

Master - CD Reader
Slave - Zip Drive

As I mentioned earlier, I swapped due to manageable cable lengths/cooling and for faster CD writing.

Any LILO pros out there? Or could Grub solve my problems?

azjazz
 
Old 12-10-2002, 07:51 AM   #12
whansard
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those guys are right about the cable select thing.
its actually possible to have 2 cable select set devices
on the same cable, if you cut the right wire going to
one of the drives. If you have the right kind of cable(and
nobody does anymore for this), you can set all your
drives to cable select, and they are either master or
slave, depending where they are on the cable.

the most important thing is that having the cdwriter
master and the hard drive slave is fscked up. Don't
do that. I think when you try to boot from a hard drive
like that, the bios changes the drive designation
from something like 0x81 to 0x80, then linux starts
to boot, and it knows that the drive is hdb . . . . nevermind. just don't do it. only slave a hard drive
to another hard drive.
 
Old 12-12-2002, 05:21 AM   #13
azjazz
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whansard,

I tried using the Master/Slave jumpers on the drives (setting the middle drive to "Master" and the top drive to "Slave") and got the expected bad result. One of the drives (the top drive) was not detected by the BIOS properly. I know that one of the 80 pin wires is purposely cut (I've seen it cut out on one of my cables) to provide the "Cable Select" automatic identification.

This means that I am limited by the physical location of the drives and the length of my cable as to where the Master / Slave drives are at. In retrospect, it probably would have made better sense for the newer IDE cables to have the Master device in the middle and the Slave device at the end.

If the answer to my problem is too complex to describ here, does anyone know where I can get detailed instructions on how to solve this? A comprehensive description of the lilo.conf file would be nice ...

azjazz
 
Old 12-12-2002, 06:58 AM   #14
whansard
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you could buy some flat ribbon cable and make your
own out of spec cables. but i think the answer is
you can't really do what you are wanting to do because
of the shape of your case, and the placement of the
drives and connectors on the motherboard. A perhaps
better fix would be to get one of those 3.5 inch drive to
5.25 bay converter thingies and put your hard drive in
the top bay in your case. You can usually find them for
free in old piles of junk computers.
Or, you could get crazy with the duck tape or get some
round udma/66 ide cables.
I cut my floppy drive cable and secondary ide 40 pin
cable into 4 strips. They take up way less space.
search on the web for what many people have done to
improve airflow, and look for rounded and split ribbon
cables.

can you put your hard drive immediately below the
bottom cdrom drive bay,(maybe move your floppy).
and put the burner in that spot?

Last edited by whansard; 12-12-2002 at 07:00 AM.
 
Old 12-12-2002, 11:19 PM   #15
azjazz
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I'll be checking out your suggestions. I'm a bit surprised that Linux couldn't handle this - from what I've seen, Linux is far more powerful and configurable than Windows.

I'll admit that I'm amazed - Windows actually handled the hard drive swap without any modifications, while Linux can't seem to handle this at all ...

azjazz
 
  


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