DRDY error when fitting new motherboard (ASROCK N68-s)
 

That's the essence.I have changed hard drives with different o/s's and the one that got nearest to start was Mint7. The screen is a Flatron l1510S, that normally works fine but in this case the furthest it has got is the start page offering Mint6/7 then goes to mush. This is on a sata connection with all unnecessary internals/externals disconnected. On Debian (ide) it records the DRDY error accompanied with 'unmask' but cannot do much if I cannot start the system.


Fred

did you heck with any livecd? same error???

If I understand the problem and what you have tried...

Firstly, were it I, I would look to the BIOS and my motherboard manual to see that all the settings relating to SATA/IDE/RAID seem to be as they should be.

Then I would try to boot the system with a copy of KNOPPIX 5.1.1 using the cheat codes to get it to boot. Assuming that it does, I would open a terminal and try the command dmesg to see what modules are being loaded. That will tell you what works.

You can then use the live-cd to gather information about your motherboard controllers and HDD and google to try and find out what hardware should be working and which modules or other parts of linux that need to be loaded or configured.

You might try the same procedure with a newer another live-cd with the latest controller modules, again using cheat codes if it will not boot on its own, perhaps KNOPPIX 6.0.1. The paradox is that by eliminating boot parameters, one is, as I understand it, also eliminating the loading of modules, but in the process, gaining information.

All this is based on the assumption that your installation lacks or does not load a module that is required by the new mother board.

If you have or can create a little space on a HDD, you might try to install something like openSUSE 11.1 or another newer distro from a DVD with a net update just to see if it can be installed. If it boots after installation, look to see what loads at boot that is different from any live-cd you can get working.

This is not my area of expertise, but this post may attract someone with more experience in this area.

You might also try to edit your post to give us more information and for clarity. That should make it more likely that there is a response.

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...Ask_a_Question

DRDY
 

Dear thor,
thanks for your reply, v. useful. I did the dmesg thing and it looks like roadkill. Short version (I will try to transfer and post it) clocksource is returning as unstable and many errors are afoot. Thus far it only boots on Mint6. I will have to look into the Knoppix 'cheats' as kn 6.1 will not boot normally. It seems the board is unstable and it may well be going back to Scan at Middlebrook.

Fred

Hi,

You could try passing 'noapci & noapic' to the kernel. That's why some are suggesting 'KNOPPIX' with cheat codes.

noapic motherboard
 

Dear Sirs,
said motherboard was exchanged but had a similar problem with a biostar MCP6P M2+ board. Boots ok to XP (manufacturers are a tad blinkered) but needed to disable apic in the bios to boot Mint7 but it still does not boot Fedora 11 or Debian 4. I'd rather not manually mess with the kernel on an otherwise working system for fear of making it fail. I have tried a quite old version of sysrescue to no avail. Was I wrong in disabling 'apic'? Can anyone suggest an automated alternative?

Fred.