Installing on SATA diskForum: HD Install Topic: Installing on SATA disk started by: TomKnowles Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 23 2008,19:36
I have been using DSL for some years now on an epos project. The beauty is that I can do complete installations (ready to go) from a usb stick. The supplier is shipping only SATA based hardware now, and I cant seem to get DSL loaded to run from the sata HD. With sata support on the boot line, the installation goes normally until just before the Grub install, with complaints about libata and then via_sata, no such modules. If I let it go thru the grub install, it will then not boot. The question is, can DSL be installed successfully on sata, or is sata support just for access to same. I'm not sure what to do next.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 25 2008,05:12
Did you try lilo?I haven't tested SATA yet, but I find that it's kind of odd that grub install would try to load those modules when they should already be in memory, but maybe it does need them. Can you verify if they are already in memory? (i.e. `lsmod|grep ata `) If they are already loaded and grub still spits out that error, you could manually copy over those 2 modules from the initrd (libata and I assume you meant sata_via) into /ramdisk (iirc you might also have to remove the symlinks from /lib/modules/`uname -r`/modules.* and copy over the actual files from /KNOPPIX to /ramdisk and then run depmod) Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 25 2008,15:35
Thanks for the reply.I tried lilo on one occasion as I retried the load, but the subsequent boot said loading grub then error 15. Seems pointless to dilute the problem with that one at the mo. The lsmod command shows libata and sata_via (you presumed right) are loaded in memory. I did think about copying the appropriate items, but I'm not sure where they are (precisely). I cant find anything like libata and the only ref to sata_via is in /proc/sys. Could you possibly enlighten me, as I dont seem to know what I'm looking for? If you can be bothered, could you step me thru the necessary stages? Many thanks Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 25 2008,18:30
The location of the initrd depends on your setup, but it should be something like /cdrom/boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz on a livecd. Since you indicated an liveusb frugal, perhaps it is in another location. If this is the case, try running `find /cdrom | grep minirt `. If that still doesn't find it, look in /mnt/sdXx (after mounting the device). Mounting the initrd to /mnt/m
Copy your modules to somewhere in /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/ (maybe scsi/) Update the modules stuff: with `sudo depmod` Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 26 2008,09:51
I followed your instructions, then did dsl-hdinstall, I presume that's correct. There was no mention of libata etc, so I presumed all was OK. When I reboot I get.. Grub loading, please wait... then Error 15. Do you think this is a grub or a sata issue? Can you assist me further? How close are you to the deveopment chain? With sata disks so proliferate now, do you think this issue is likely to be addressed in upcoming releases? Sorry for all the questions, but DSL has been a godsend in the past. Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 26 2008,10:10
Just for the record. I cleared out the MBR and went through the process again. Now I get...DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK etc. Any pertinent help most welcome. Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 26 2008,10:12
Just for the record. I cleared out the MBR and went thru the process again.Now Iget... DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK etc.. Any pertinent help welcome. Posted by roberts on Sep. 26 2008,16:08
Since you cleared out the MBR you will need to reinstall grub.I don't have any SATA disk to help you test this, however, I suspect the following... The default device map in DSL does not have any sdx items. You should therefore use the (sd0,1) type specifications on both the kernel and minirt lines. Since you mentioned using a pendrive, then perhaps you are experiencing a change in device names, ie, when booted from pendirve might be sdaX and the sata drive is sdbY. But when you boot with grub from the SATA drive without the pendrive, there is now no sdbY device, therefore error 15 I would at the first grub screen press 'c' to get a grub command prompt and then use the 'find' command to see what the actual device is and then edit that device specification to the boot lines. Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 26 2008,17:48
Many thanks for the response.Apologies, realised what I had done just after posting that double message. Anyway, it would appear that some previous info (mine) is misleading. The DSL load was over (repartioned) previous load of etch. When I tried on a clean machine I got that Verifying dmi pool data freeze. On the basis that reloading DSL with grub then lilo made no diff to the grub Error 15 at that stage, I'm inclined to think that DSL does not overwrite the mbr on a sata load. Furthermore, I ran some mbr create line prior to DSL load and the boot yielded MBR 1FA or similar, which did not try to load partition 1 when selected. Am I making a case here? Then I tried loading etch in a different partition to get a proper mbr. Sure enough the entries for DSL were there. Etch boots OK. DSL displays the penguin then says:- Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount rootfs on 08:01 I tried changing hd0,0 in menu.lst to sd0,0 but that gave me:- Error 23: Error while parsing number. Has anybody done a successful DSL on SATA load? If so, what's the secret? Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 26 2008,18:00
A little more.I just tried the 'find' command as suggested by roberts. The 'etch' entries yield (hd0,2), quite correctly. DSL entries yield Error 15: File not found. ( That figures!) So far as I am aware, I haven't effected any changes to the standard load. What does it mean? Anything I can do? Posted by roberts on Sep. 26 2008,19:43
Debian Etch is kernel 2.6 so not very useful to compare.I could be wrong but I believe 2,4 kernel saw sata drives as sd and not hd. If you can boot from a cdrom and then see what DSL sees as your hard drive, DSL being a 2,4 kernel is not able to use all the various SATA drives. Before doing any install I would try to boot a DSL cdrom with the sata boot option to see if this hardware is supported and if so what drive letter was assigned. Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 29 2008,09:35
Interesting. I have been booting DSL from a USB stick and trying the hdinstall from there. As mentioned by Roberts, I tried booting from cdrom. (It has to be a usb device as these eops machines have no internal cd). The boot freezes during autoconfiguring devices. I tried to boot the cd in my home PC (it has internal CD and SATA drive). It just said it couldn't find the Knoppix system. Burned another DSL CD and it did the same. I'm puzzled, but don't have any more time to spend on this at the moment. I will come back to it and report any 'progress'.
Posted by TomKnowles on Sep. 29 2008,09:38
Where is my head? Correction to last posting... My home PC uses an external USB CD/DVD drive. Is there any significance?
Posted by curaga on Sep. 29 2008,11:58
USB devices are slow, they often haven't been recognized yet when the KNOPPIX scan is done.Try adding "waitusb" to your desktop machine boot arguments. Posted by roberts on Sep. 29 2008,15:08
You can always avoid the search for knoppix issues by using the initrd version of DSL.
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