I just read the following in another post that may help me:
The post was about someone having a problem installing RH7 on a notebook. I'm trying to install RH7 on my home PC and believe my problem is related to what was just said. I'm on an Abit mobo with an HPT370 ATA100 controller...

When I boot off of the RH7cd, my older hd on my regular ata33 primary master ide channel is seen as hda1. The install goes through fine, and I then use the newly created bootdisk to get into linux, extract the bootsector to a floppy, reboot into XP, and copy the bootsector to C: and add the new entries into boot.ini (as I have done before in my life)...

And, when I select "Linux" in my NT bootloader, all I get is "LI " and it hangs... too familiar...

Now, the NT bootloader is on my ATA100 drive ( to DOS it's C: ) but, if I ever boot off of ANYTHING other than that drive (a dos bootdisk, or a linux cd perhaps) it would be seen as "D:")...

So... I'm thinking that while Linux is installing it as HDA1, when it goes off the NT bootloader it should be HDE1? Or HDB? Since someone mentioned RedHat and Abit motherboard and problem all in the same paragraph, I thought my problem may be more common than I thought.

If anyone can help,...... please do!

Thanks,
neeyo

Its not a 1024 cylinder thing? I only ask because redhat is still using an old version of lilo that still has this problem.

I thought that at first too... that's why I made /boot the first partition on the drive and only 50 megs... same result.

Ok. After you moved the bootsector did you edit lilo.conf to point to the new location and re-run lilo?

Another thing I had trouble with on the li then crap problem is that if your boot=hda1 line in in there it mus be changed to boot=hda or boot=hdb or whatever you are booting from the number has to go

Hi,

I am currently undergoing my own suffering with the HPT370 on the Epox8KTA3+. This is what I know:

Go to http://www.highpoint-tech.com and get the latest patches. They have a boot disk for the install and also a driver disk for RedHat with the latest HPT370 drivers. However, I also think you have to have the HPT2.1 BIOS. You'll have to check with ABIT about that. In my searching, I thought I came across an abit fan support site that had a bootleg version of the BIOS update with the 2.1 BIOS included. Look around...you can probably find one. Bear in mind, however, that it won't be tested by the mfg. and you will have to use it at your own risk.

So far, I haven't gotten my Epox to work yet. Maybe I'll start a thread after a little more searching here. I can't even install it on the regular IDE bus. Ah well, "I have not yet begun to install!"

Neeyo: Got your message via email yesterday - I'm on the road so I don't check in as often as I like to. Sorry for the delay but I was in a motel in a small town for the last 2 weeks and there were no phones in the room. Seriously.

It looks to me like RH is enumerating the IDE devices starting from the primary controller, then secondary, and then the HPT-370 (primary, then secondary).

If you want the ATA100 (HPT-370) to be the first controller (the master would be /dev/hda) you will need to pass some stuff to the kernel at the boot prompt. This is assuming that the kernel has the requred settings built in (something to do with boot off-board controllers... I'm borrowing my buddy's Win98 Stinkpad for this trip so I am without linux for the duration of the road trip). Essentially you need to tell the kernel to enumerate the IDE devices backwards. You can do this with assuming that the boot label on the install is using 'linux' as the kernel image. RH7 is kernel 2.4.x I believe so this should work. If you're on an older kernel you would use 'pci=reverse' instead.

Failing this you could temporarily attach the target drive on which you want to install linux to the primary controller and do the install. You can then customize the kernel for your controller and drive layout, make a boot floppy, and move the drive to the HPT-370 socket. It's a little hard to explain, but it can be done.

Good Luck,
DMc

Hi,

I can add some info here that you may find helpful regarding a related motherboard implementation of the HPT370 controller...I'm not doing dual boot like you are, but maybe you'll find something useful:

After resolving some RAM trouble and getting my BIOS updated to the latest HPT370 HighPoint BIOS mentioned in my previous post, I had no trouble installing a RAID 1 w/ 2 Quantum Fireball Plus ATA100 AS40 drives and the Epox 8KTA3+ w/ HPT370 RAID controller. My installation boots and has no trouble detecting the RAID controller - no hanging, etc.

I used the boot and driver disks provided with the drivers at highpoint-tech.com, made sure I had the correct BIOS, did the expert text mode install, ran the post install, set up the mirror, and it works great. I am using each drive on its own UDMA channel as a master. When I did the install, drive 1 was detected as /dev/sda1 and I have a dedicated HPT370 boot config for Linux.

I would suggest that you try to upgrade your HPT370 BIOS to 2.1 (not 1.11.0402 or whichever version you have), and also use the new HPT370 drivers - that may help resolve some of the trouble (hanging, etc.), but maybe not the drive lettering. The HP site specifically states that the new BIOS and drivers are required for linux compatibility.

You may have some added complexity in that you are trying to use the NT Bootloader, which I am not doing...

Anyway...good luck...if you can't find the updated BIOS for your motherboard, contact ABIT and see if they will make one including the HPT370 2.1 updates. I hope this helps a little...IMO, I think your problems might be more complex than drive lettering...

LinuxElf

http://linux-embedded.com/howto/Bootdisk-HOWTO-12.html
have a look at this

Hello

Am building a new PC.

I see you got the Highpoint thing to work. I've just spent many hours trying to install RH7.2 on the abitkt7a raid mobo. Have 2 seagate disks which the HPT should be striping. I use the driver disk from highpoint, but then it asks me for "driver 1 disk". Any idea what this is??? If I cancel, the installer dies with a signal 11 error.

Alt F2 3 etc doesn't seem to show anything too strange. It may be memory etc, but on the occasions when I get the installer to work, it doesn't see the drives as sd's but as hde/g. If I ignore the lack of raid, it crashes anyway. I wonder if its the Vid card.

Specs
Abit kt7a raid with bios upgrade to kt64 / hpt2.0.19 (I think)
athlon 1Ghz 266
2x512Meg Crucial dimms
2x 20.4 Gb Seagate ata100 Barracuda4s
16xCDR
16xDVD
Elsa erazor 3 LT AGP (have BIOS 4x AGP disabled)
Floppy
Lots of fans

Had a netgear fa311 and SB PCI in there too, but took them out in case they were causing the problem.

I'm convinced it's this mystery driver disk that's causing the problem, once I've figured out what it is, and if it's not the problem, I'll change graphics etc.

For now, its 0400 and some sleep is needed!

Jim

Ok some progress.
Got RH7.0 on the machine now, had recurrent sig11s tried all memory options etc. Eventually tried telling BIOS my 1Ghz 133fsb cpu was a 100 fsb. Installed fine. Then tried to update, 7.2 can't see the drive. I tried highpoints RH7.1 boot disk, but then it can't see the 7.1 CD so won't work. Am sticking with 7.0 for now.
Interestingly once I got the thing installed, I put the fsb back to 133 and all seems well. Need to do a run in though.
Jim

I'd like to throw my hat into the ring,I am using a abit vp6 motherboard with dual p3 900's.used the newest bios and the boot disk with the hpt 370 drivers,and installed rh7.0.the install goes fine,but at the boot screen it lists dos,linux,linux smp and linux up.I can boot to dos(win98) and linux up.
I cannot boot to linux or linux smp,which is what I'M SEEKING.I'm new at linux,two days and I have already gotten a grasp on the commands.
SOME ANYWAY
my errors are cannot mount root fs on 16:01.
why will the machine boot to linux up but not smp?
anyone know how to view the partition table without danger of changing anything so I can see the partitions and the naming system,I believe the hpt drivers changed these names.
how do I modify the /etc/lilo.conf files,every time I try to look at it it asks what program to use,and I'm chicken to pick one lol
any and all help appreciated,thanks everyone in advance.:smash:

I was having the same trouble with the "driver 1 disk" message when trying to install RH 7.2. Has anyone ever gotten past that issue???

I've had luck installing RedHat 7.0 with the Highpoint disk driver disk in the boot phase and it worked quite well. However, I'd prefer to load 7.2 and a new machine.

I think we have to wait for a highpoint driver update. v1.1 clearly doesn't work beyond 7.1.

I am personally a newb to linux but one of my friends has linux (redhat) and had a lot of trouble with his computer. He originally had a self-built 300mhz with win2000 and he installed redhat linux 6.4. He installed LILO (Terrible mistake) instead of using a boot floppy only....and whenever he tried to start linux from LILO...well, you know. He has discovered that it is much easier to NOT install LILO when you have a WINNT based computer system, because WINNT has a booter just like linux, and it takes hours and hours of...
:smash:
to get it working right, but it does pay off, until that one day when it starts crashing again...
:smash: