Hello,

I'd already started another thread about this problem ("Slackware fails to install without error message") but as I've now narrowed the problem down I thought I'd repost with a more defined heading.

Anyway my problem is that I'm trying to install Linux on a system comprising the following:

Abit KR7A-RAID motherboard with 4 EIDE controllers.

EIDE1 Master - 80 Gb IBM Deskstar (Windows C)
EIDE2 Master - DVD-ROM
EIDE2 Slave - 80 Gb IBM Deskstar (Windows D, removable caddy)
EIDE3 Master - 120 Gb IBM Deskstar
EIDE4 Master - 120 Gb IBM Deskstar

I'm trying to install Linux on the 2 120 Gb drives but having tried 3 distros none will install

Suse 8.1 will install if I do an insmod for the highpoint drivers at install time but as soon as I then try to boot the installed system I get "Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs".

Slackware 9.0 gets to the install packages stage but then finishes in under 2 seconds with no error message (i.e. nothing is actually written to the disks) I also can't use the "insmod" trick as the highpoint drivers were compiled against kernel 2.4.19 (and I can't recompile them without having a working system...)

Red Hat 9.0 tells me "the partition table on /dev/hdg is inconsistent" and fails.

Now I can partition and format both drives using a variety of DOS based tools (i.e. IBMs Drive Manager, Partition Magic etc. etc.) but Linux is clearly having a problem with them. As part of my testing I even built both RAID0 and RAID1 arrays in Windoze which both worked fine (obviously I've repartitioned & reformatted since then)

So I'd love to know if anybody has ever managed to successfully install Linux on an Abit KR7A-RAID board ? And if so HOW ???

If at all possible I'd like to install Slackware 9.0 but at this stage I'd make do with any flavour of Linux.

Any advice gratefully received.

Have you tried the ataraid.i kernel with Highpoint 370 support when booting the CD?

If you know how to get the support for the Highpoint 372 in the kernel, I could build the kernel and post it for you.

Haven't got older kernel sources any more, but
2.4.20 & 2.4.21-rc1 seem to know the HPT372 :}
(grep -r HPT372 drivers/ide/*)

Cheers,
Tink

Ya, any kernel 2.4.20 or greater should support it out of the box. I know in menuconfig when you hit help on the HPT36x/370 it doesn't explicitly spell out that it works with the HPT372 but it should. If you read the comments in the relevent section of the kernel code it says it is supported. If you get to the point where you can format drives and stuff and setup your partitions then it is supporting the chipset. Are you running a RAID array on there? Because I don't know that the HPT370 RAID kernel stuff will work with the 372.

I actually did a check on the linux kernel boards and the only problems they have reported with that board and that ide controller were fixed sometime before the final 2.4.18 kernel.

Hello again,

Firstly thanks for all the replies. And if I may just clarify matters:

No, I'm not using the drives as any sort of RAID array and yes, I did specify the ataraid.i kernel when attempting to install Slackware.

I can also confirm that Slackware 9.0 is using the 2.4.20 kernel as when I attempt to use insmod to supply the highpoint drivers at installation time it won't load them and gives an error message saying it can't use the module as it was "compiled against the 2.4.19 kernel but we're using kernel 2.4.20". (the drivers in question were downloaded from the highpoint site and were compiled for Suse 8.1 so I thought I'd "give 'em a go")

But if excalibur could compile a kernel with highpoints driver built in I'd be most grateful. Sadly I'm new to Linux so I don't know how to do this but I can tell you that I downloaded the source from highpoints site at:

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/hpt3xx...ource-v131.tgz

But of course I can't compile them without a working Linux system... And I can't install Linux on my system...

I suppose I could try moving my drives so that the 2 120 Gb disks are on the EIDE1 & 2 controllers but I'd prefer to keep things as they are.

Another slightly worrying thing is that since attempting the last Red Hat install (which complained about incorrect partition tables on /dev/hdg) I noticed that the relevant 120 Gb drive is now showing up in the BIOS with a corrupted name (it's now become an IC#5L1"0AVF 7-0 instead of the correct IC35L120AVV207-0)

However IBMs drive fitness test says it's o.k., Partition Magic let me delete the partitions on it and create new ones etc. so I'll clear my CMOS tonight and have another look (I have to go to work now).

Finally is there any way I can get the Slackware install routine to output "verbose" debug messages to a log file (on floppy) so I could perhaps get a clue as to why it fails to write anything to disk ?

Thanks again for the replies. If it proves one thing the community support for Linux is excellent !

I've had major problems with the Highpoint hardware, I don't know how dependent on this controller you are, but I would recommend changing it if it's at all possible. It's not just a problem of support in Linux, the hardware itself is buggy; I can't even get it to recognize large hard drives on boot up, before Linux loads. I've got a Terabyte system that has been unusable with a highpoint, but perfectly fine with the Promise RAID controller.

Are you sure you are trying to load the correct driver? There is a driver that comes built into the 2.4.20 kernel that should work with your device. You shouldn't have to use any kind of special driver from High Point themselves unless you are using raid and feel the kernel hptraid is too unstable. I contacted a friend who has that very motherboard and he claims it worked perfectly fine. Are you sure you have the newest firmware/bios for your board? Can you confirm if the slackware setup actually finds any disks when it books the kernel? If so I am inclined to think this is a problem that might involve bad hardware or an old buggy bios.

The source code you referenced offered a module only. So I built it under a Slack 9 running the 2.4.20 kernel. So I would not think you have problem loading it. You can pick up the file(s) as desired from here; ftp://ftp.jpf.biz/linux/highpoint

Good luck, there web page has a lot of warnings regarding all the firmware, etc. so be sure to verify everything is the latest.

Excalibur you're a star !

Many thanks indeed for the compilation - I'll try it out when I get home from work this evening.

And in the meantime I got my oldest machine out & installed Slackware on it (just for the practice) Now this PC has only got a 200 Mhz AMD K5 in it but Slackware 9.0 runs a lot faster than either Suse 8.1 or Red Hat 8.0 did on it (yep, it's my practice box so I've tried out all sorts on it)

The only bad thing was is didn't recognise my Iiyama MF816E conrrectly so the refresh rate for the monitor is too low but a spot of xconfig should sort that out (as soon as I find where I've put the monitor manual as I can never remember all the manual settings)

Anyway, I'll give your modules a go this evening and let you know how I get on.

Thankyou again !

Hi,
You mentioned you were trying to install Linux on the two 120 Gb drives. Apparently you now have hde as the master on cable #4 and the other 120 Gb drive is on hdg as master on cable #4. So you are attempting to install Linux on either the 3rd or 4th hard drive. I could be mistaken but I was under the impression that /boot had to be located on a partition on one of the 1st two hard disks.

Apparenly, like the motherboard I have, it is possible to attach up to 8 IDE devices on the 4 IDE channels on the 4 motherboards connectors. Most computers have only 2 EIDE connectors on the motherboard making it possible to connect two EIDE cables to 4 EIDE devices. The manual for my motherboard clearly states that the Highpoint 372 controls EIDE channels #3 and #4. It does not say what controlls EIDE channels #1 and #2, but it seems to imply that something else does. My best guess is that the VIA chipset controls them instead. You have a Highpoint 372 but a different VIA chipset, so I am wondering if you have 1 or 2 controllers? I assume you do most likely have 4 EIDE channels for 8 EIDE devices.

I also read somewhere that on computers with two EIDE connectors on the motherboard one EIDE interface will usually be the primary EIDE interface and the other will be the secondary EIDE interface. According to what I read it is recommended that the Master Boot Record (MBR) be on the primary EIDE interface. If you look in your BIOS setup program it will probably say which is which. The confusing thing on my computer is that there are settings related to the hard drive in both the main BIOS and in the separate Highpoint BIOS setup program that boots of afterwards.

I am not sure if the above statement would also apply when you have LILO or GRUB place the boot record in the root sector of the Linux partiton you boot from. Anyway, in your case, it might be best to put /boot on a seperate partition on one of the first 2 hard drives. It does not need to be a very big partion. It just needs to be one of the 3 or 4 primary partions that can be created there. With some Linux sytems the /boot partition needs to be located entirely under cylinder 1024. Any other partitons you decide to create such as /swap, /usr or / can be anywhere on any of your 4 hard drives. They can even be logical partitions within the extended partion area.

You mentioned you already have System Commander and Partition Magic. I use those too. They would be the ideal tools to easily resize slighty or move a partion on one of your first two drives to make room for a /boot partition. I have used both products many times to resize partitions without any problem. The current version of Partition magic will resize FAT 16, FAT 32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3 and ReiserFS partitions.

Red Hat 9 was the 1st distro that I found that would install on my system. I have not yet tried the new Slack 9.0. I wonder if the friend with the same motherboard mentioned earlier had hard drives on hde and hdg and was trying to boot from there.

Oops, I ment to say that it looks like your have hde on cable #3 and hdg on cable #4. I did not mean to imply that they are both still on cable #4. Also, when I was saying primary and seconary interfaces above I did not make it clear that is something different from the master slave thing. My understanding is that the primary IDE interface is usually the 1st connector on the mobo and the 2nd connector is the secondary IDE interface. In your main BIOS you will most likely see the terms Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master, and Secondary Slave. My computer uses that terminology within the main BIOS for the mobo's connectors #1 and #2. In the separate Highpoint BIOS it also uses that terminology for the motherboards connectors #3 and #4.

Apparently, Red Hat 9 was the first disto that can handel my motherboard. It is a different mobo than Raptor Ramjet's. I know several people around the country had unsuccessfully tried to install various distros. I plan to add Slack 9 as well before long if possible.

Here is one more thing I just noticed about your setup. On cable #2 the DVD-ROM is the master and your 2nd hard drive is the slave. According to my Red Hat 9 installation manual, that makes your second hard drive the 3rd EIDE device. That means /boot can now not even be on your 2nd hard drive because it is not one of the 1st two devices. It would probably be better to put the 2nd hard drive on hdb and the DVD-ROM on hdc. Then on that disk, you could place up to 3 bootable primary partitions for booting various distros and one extend partiton with one or more logical partitions on it. That is how I have mine setup. Sorry to be so long winded!

I might be mistaken but I really don't think it matters which IDE device your /boot partition is on.

I have a system with the following IDE setup:

hda = DVD-ROM
hdb = Nothing
hdc = CDRW
hdd = ZIP
hde = 40GB HD
hdg = 40GB HD

For a long time I used to boot Windows off of hde and linux off of hdg. About two years ago I got completely sick of windows, blew away hde, turned it into my /home partition and to this day I still boot off of hdg (with grub). By my count doesn't that mean I am booting off the 6th device? I suppose it could be limit to the first 2 devices on a particular controller, in which case I guess I wouldn't be breaking the rule.

You may be right, perhaps it does not matter. If not, I wish they they would not say things like that in the Linux manuals. All I know is what I read and of course I should not believe everything I read. I am even less sure about the part about primary controllers being best, only one book said that. Those sources indicated there could be exceptions.

Hello,

Thanks once again for all the replies - at least this proves that my decision to get involved with Linux is a good one as the community support is excellent.

But following much work on my behalf I'm still no nearer to getting Slackware on my box. I've tried many installs using either the bare.i kernel or the ataraid.i kernel - both with and without using insmod for the the highpoint drivers compiled by Excalibur (many, many thanks for your efforts !) but all to no avail....

And I can confirm that the motherboard BIOS is the latest as I only flashed it a week or so ago using the latest release from the Abit site (this was the advice given for using the open source highpoint drivers)

So... for the moment I've decided to keep things simple and have been trying to install to /dev/hde (EIDE3) using two partitions (one for for swap and one for /) and my problems can now be summarised as follows:

When I boot from the Slackware CD and attempt to use cfdisk to create partitions on /dev/hde it fails (sorry but I forgot to write down the exact error message but it's obvious that it's failing to create a partition)

If I use Partition Magic to pre-create two ext2 partitions, use cfdisk to change one partition type to "Linux swap" and run the Slackware setup I can perform addswap for the swap partition but when I try to format the / partition using reiserfs I get a message at the bottom of the screen simply saying "Aborted" and I then obviously can't continue.

If I repeat the process but leave the / partition formatted as ext2 I can then get as far as selecting installation source and choosing packages etc. but I'm shortly back to the problem where the install appears to run through in about 3 seconds, nothing is written to disk, I swear long and loudly and I'm glad that I've tied my legs up such that I can't kick the computer to pieces

As a final aggravation then I've just re run the Red Hat 9.0 installation (again using only /dev/hde) and this worked.

"So why don't you just stop complaining and use Red Hat ?" I hear you say.

Well... as I mentioned in a previous post I've successfully installed Slackware 9.0 on my old 200 Mhz K5 machine and after spending a couple of days "playing" with it (sorry doing R&D) I know that this is the distro I want to use. I feel I've learnt more about Linux from my short foray into "Slackland" than I have from any of my other "tinkering" with Linux. Maybe I need to get out more but there's something inherently satisfying in having to type "startx" to get into the GUI ?

So it's yours shutting down the fabulously elegant looking Red Hat and looking forlornly at my poor Slackware CD..... "Bob" dammit ! I know the prescriptures weren't talking about 'puters but even the good book (i.e. the book of the Subgenius) says that "every Subgenius must have Slack".

Maybe it would help if I unsoldered the HPT372 controller from the motherboard and took it out into the yard for a good thrashing ? (or maybe the controller should unsolder me from my keyboard and give me a good thrashing ?)