SuSE 9.2 refuses to boot (or install) with an On-Board Promise RAID. Please Help
 

Hi All,
Before flaming me for posting a topic that "seems" to have bene posted before, I have searched this forum, the net, as well as SuSE's portal and found no direct solution. Kindly read on, as I could use the help

The Setup:

Soyo Dragon Plus K7v with built-in Promise Ultra 100 controller
SuSE Linux professional 9.2
Windows 2000 Professional (Sp4)

The issue:
SuSE 9.2 HANGS at install whenever the controller is enabled. It can install ONLY IF the controller is disabled. AFTER it is installed, re-enabling the controller causes Suse not to boot. it freezes with the error message "waiting for /dev/hda2 to appear..." followed buy a long list of available device nodes.

So the ONLY way to get suse going is to have the controller completely disabled in the BIOS? How can this be fixed?

NOTE: The SAME hardware ran just fine on suse 9.1 so i am certain this is NOT a hardware problem.

Can anyone help please?

Again, yes I DID search the forums, I DID do a google search, and i DID look in the SuSE portal to no avail. Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

Ok, so how many other boot options did you try?
Must have taken you hours to go through all the acpi, apm, bios, pci, irq, bootup, startup, runlevels and other mess that suse is capable of changing at boot which half the time makes stubborn hardware work.

Or did you skip trying them and go for instant linux questions answer?
Post back on status after you've gone through the boot options. Lists of them can be found on suse's website.

I have tried EVERYTHING.

Oh and i forgot, the ONLY way i got Suse's INstall to actually work was with two things

a.) ide=nodma

and

b.) disabling the promise controller

I have ot have ide=nodma in either case to get to the point in the setup where it formats the drives. usually it hangs right there *unless the controller is disabled).

I am 100% certain the issue is at thge controller, since it boots FLAWLESSLY whith it disabled.

The weird thing is in 9.1 I did not have this problem and I was running the same hardware!

Well, that's not wierd at all though. Remember, each version that comes out has newer software. Its possible the problem lies in software that wasnt even written when suse 9.1 was created, such as a new improved promise driver or a fancier way of handing certain hardware... I can't even boot my laptop on a kernel above 2.6.4 because of something they changed in acpi which now makes my laptop incompatable... Not just suse either, they changed something in the kernel which screws it up.

Thanx for the insight. Of course I DO have that in mind. however, Since when i DID have the controller enabled, SuSE's setup (YAST) was able to work with (edit/create/delete partitions) on hard drives connected to the promise card, I am clueless. It usually has a problem right after formatting the / partition. Similarly, when booting with the controller enabled is it seems to pick up the promise card and assume to boot from ITrather than the other IDE controllers.

I am still open to ideas, so keep those replies coming in. :D :)

If all of the hardware was working perfectly with 9.1 and now it won't work with 9.2, backrev your operating system and go back to 9.1 altogether. Update just the packages, drivers, etc. that have serious bugs in them for 9.1 until 9.3 or a kernel patch is released.

It's not always necessary to go for the next updated released version every time there it one. Just like the old saying goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I'f you're really serious about staying with 9.2 you're going to have to do all the footwork the developers of the operating system probably are working on as you read this or are receiving bug reports from the various sources available to them.

Track down the IDE driver and it's dependencies and backrev them to see if this resolves the issue.

===

Linux... the only real operating system!

???
 

Ok you completely lost me.

Anyways, It has been my policy to updgrade to the latest version of SuSe whenever to come out (faithful user since 7.3). Usually I am willing to put up with the trouble of getting it work most of the time. I am just surprised somethng like this STILL troubles linux :(

shassouneh...

Put in the 9.1 cd/dvd and install the old kernel rpm from those disks manually. Might fix the problems, and it'll still be a 2.6 kernel.

Yes but how do I do that manually. I know how to install tpms,but hat brings up 2 important questions

1.) which rpm(s) to install (a file name would be grea)

2.) how do I force 9.2 to use the older kernel and still be able to use the current boot configuration.

I do appreciate your patience and replies everyone.

Promise Controller Card
 

Do you use the controller in raid or ide configuration? I understand there is no support in Kernel 2.6 for raid

"
1.) which rpm(s) to install (a file name would be grea)"

The ones with the word "Kernel" right in the filename would be just fine...

Just install them and reboot.

Re: Promise Controller Card
 

The "Default" Configuration whatever it might be. As far as I know I am not using RAID, since I am simply using it as an additional controller to plug hard drives, and CD-Rom/CD-RW/DVD drives into. I am NOT running a RAID configuration. The controller is to be used simply as an additional IDE ocntroller.

As for the kernel RPMs, I still don't see how installing the kernel RPMs will get 9.2 to FORCE booting with the 9.1 kernel. Additionally, I doubt the kernel is really the problem since It seem to try to boot from the promise IDE controller no matter what (providing it is enabled). Disabling the controller altogether allows SuSE to both install and run just fine :(

You said it worked with suse 9.1
Meaning suse may have changed something with the kernel or the newer version of the kernel is simply currently incompatible and its worth a shot that the old kernel will fix the problem. You can always re-install the new kernel if it doesnt work.

Installing the rpms forces it to boot with te 9.1 kernel because it uninstalls the 9.2 kernel in the process and re-writes the grub conf files just like an update.