Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 52485
Installer hangs at partition check
Last modified: 2008-08-01 12:22:51 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.72 [en]C-{C-UDP; EBM-Fujitsu1} (Win98; U) Description of problem: I'm trying to install 7.1 as an upgrade to 6.1 using the hard disk installation method. Linux loads and begins to probe the hardware. It hangs during the partition check. I have tried using hda=noprobe as well as hda=nodma. Using the noprobe option, the installation progresses but thinks there are no hard disks in the system. Nodma has no effect. Here are the startup messages from the point of probing IDE: Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31 ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39 VP_IDE: chipset revision 6 VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx VP_IDE: VIA vt82c586a (rev 25) IDE UDMA33 controller on pci00:07.1 ide0: BM-DMA at 0x6000-0x6007, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio ide1: BM-DMA at 0x6008-0x600f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio hda: Maxtor 52049U4, ATA DISK drive hdd: BCD-24XHM CD-ROM, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 hda: 40020624 sectors (20491 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=2491/255/63, UDMA(33) Partition check: hda:<hang> Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot from boot disk (boot.img) 2. Wait 3. Actual Results: System hangs Expected Results: Installation should continue Additional info: Pentium 200, 64Mb RAM, Maxtor 20Gb hard drive
hda=nodma doesn't do a thing; it's "ide=nodma"; could you try that ?
it's "ide=nodma"; could you try that ?; Yes, that is what I meant (I tried it again, anyway).
Strange. Weird question: does it happen too if you connect your CDROM to the same cable as the disk ? It appears that your CDROM is currently a slave on a cable without master.....
does it happen too if you connect your CDROM to the same cable as the disk? ; It would not boot at all with the CD-ROM connected using the same cable as the disk. So, I disconnected the CD-ROM altogether and got the same results as before. It hangs at the partition check. Sometimes it shows a few partitions and sometimes it does not before hanging.
I noticed in the BIOS that the disk is in LBA mode. Is this ok? Should it be in Normal or Large mode? If I change it to a different mode, will data loss occur?
Bios settings are irrelevant other that for getting LILO and the first few ".... in teh kernel boot. My guess REALLY is that either the cable is daft, or that the drive is jumpered incorrectly, given that putting the CDROM on the same cable makes it worse. Also, if it's a 80 ribbon cable, the master has a FIXED place on the IDE cable, eg the endpoint.
given that putting the CDROM on the same cable makes it worse ; I had inadvertantly plugged the cable on the CD-ROM drive backwards. Anyway, disconnecting the CD-ROM drive completely did not change things either. Also, if it's a 80 ribbon cable, the master has a FIXED place on the IDE cable ; the hard drive IS on the end of the IDE cable. The drive is jumpered correctly (as Master/Single). RH 6.1 installed to this hard drive without any problems (and with the CD-ROM as a slave on the other IDE controller).
It seems this is not an installer problem, but that RH 7.1 and my Maxtor drive are incompatible with one another. I disconnected the Maxtor drive and installed RH 7.1 on another drive, which went well. When I reconnected the Maxtor drive the RH 7.1 would not boot. It hangs at the partition check for hdb (the Maxtor drive). I guess I will have to buy another drive to replace the perfectly good Maxtor drive. Any ideas about how to get this drive to work? I did a workstation install of RH 6.1 on it about a year ago.
hi, having same problem "instn stops at partn chk". new laptop (HP ze5500 series), blank hdd...RH8 halts. pls suggest a remedy. Thanks, Amol (dixitamol@yahoo.com)
Hi !! I HAvE THE SAME PROBLEEEMM !!!:'( well i tried all u said didnt work , although i had linux installed on the same machine and i didnt change anything but adding a CD writer on an other IDE CABLE , i disconnected it , but that didnt work i disconneect the HARD disk , and the installation went fine ! im going maad ! any ideas? i've reset my mobo and that didnt help ! i dont know what changed !
Thanks for the bug report. However, Red Hat no longer maintains this version of the product. Please upgrade to the latest version and open a new bug if the problem persists. The Fedora Legacy project (http://fedoralegacy.org/) maintains some older releases, and if you believe this bug is interesting to them, please report the problem in the bug tracker at: http://bugzilla.fedora.us/