Description of Problem: I tried to install RH7.1 on my IBM ThinkPad 1171 NM1 i-series laptop and it wouldn't work. When it got to loading /sbin/loader on the installer, it died. It just stopped and the cursor kept flashing. Only a reboot would let me do stuff with the computer. I've talked to lots of people with this problem. I have tried text mode with no success. I tried RH6.2 and that worked fine. How Reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot off CD 2. Hit enter at menu choices 3. Watch Actual Results: Stops at 'loading /sbin/loader' Expected Results: Should load /sbin/loader and start the installer
I have the same problem. I boot from the CD Rom the installation runs thru and detects the type and speed of my CD Drive then fails to spawn /bin/sh because it can't find "exec". Then I get a few dozen messages saying that it can't read from hdc (the CD). I get the same error messages when I tried to install RH 7.0 and Mandrake 8.0. I have no problems installing R.H 6.2 on the same system. I've tried to boot from a floppy using boot.img and oldcrrom.img but I still lose access to the CD drive during the install. I've also tried each installation method from the boot menu with the exact same result. I can't find any example of a harddrive install as this would be a last ditch attempt to get R.H 7.1 running.
try booting with "linux ide=nodma" at the CD's boot: prompt
the linux ide=nodma command doesn't appear to work. Seems to have the same problem.
Can you see any errors on Alt+F3 or Alt+F4?
Any more info here?
It's too early in the boot process to get a F3 or F4 screen :(
I don't know, it sounds like either some sort of hardware problem or something if you are seeing it with other distributions too. It doesn't appear to be a 2.4 kernel issue since 7.0 doesn't work either and it was 2.2 kernel based. Just as a guess, I'd say there's either something wrong with the cdrom drive or the IDE controller. Do you have another cdrom drive you could try with?
I haven't tried other distributions. However, RedHat 6.2 worked fine. I am going to see if I can get ahold of a Mandrake 8 CD or something (anything based on 2.4) and see if it dies. If it does, I am going to sign up for kernel-hackers and see what we can do there! Unfortunatly, I don't have another CD-ROM to use. If I could find a USB drive or something like that, we'll try (oh yeah, that's going to work :). I'll post my results of trying another distro.
Oh sorry. I didn't see that the second post on this report wasn't the original reporter.
Do you have the bandwidth to download the Roswell public beta for the next release and see if that perhaps fixes the problem?
I don't think the Roswell beta will help. For followup sake, I do have the bandwidth (I'm at Northern Michigan University right now). I tried out a bunch of 2.4 based installs *RH ones and Mandrake) and they all borked out. I put in Debian Potato (2.2 based) and it worked fine. Do you suggest to me that I sign onto kernel-hackers and notify them or what should I do, since this appears to be kernel based.
Tell you what, I'll change the component of this bug to the kernel, that way our kernel team can take a look at this.
things to try: type the following at the syslinux prompt: "nomce apm=off nohlt ide=nodma"
I'll try that. Note: I gotta get my disks back (I let a friend borrow them :) so it maybe a day or so before I can post my hopefully successful results. Just letting you know.
I tried: "linux nomce apm=off nohlt ide=nodma" and it still didn't work. What now?
At this point I'd say there are a limited number of possibilities, and pretty much all of them are "broken bios consult vendor" You can try booting with mem=32M in case the BIOS memory reporting is hosed. The noapm option stops us trusting the bios for that. The trouble is to debug a crash that early you need a serial port, a serial console and some patience. If you have a serial port and something to log the serial output to (eg another PC) I can lead you through that
Unfortunatly, there are no serial ports on this laptop (what I would do for a stupid serial port though...sigh). I am going to try: linux mem=128M nomce apm=off nohlt ide=nodma and see if that helps, but I'll buy ya lunch if that mem does work. I'll buy myself lunch if that mem works. I doubt it will. I am going to contact IBM about this problem and make them put their money where their mouth is about backing Linux.
Even if the box has 128Mb of RAM try mem=32M - thats a deliberate choice for an initial test to eliminate shared video, acpi and other possible goings on
I did: linux mem=32M nomce apm-off nohlt ide=nodma When it's booting, it takes a while to get past the hard disk detecting part, with the following error messages: Partition check: hda: hda: lost interrupt hda1 hda 2 <hda: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest} hda: drive not ready for command I pull the mem=32M line and it detects fine: Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 <hda5> Does that give any clue about anything?
What happened to this bug? I mean, it's still happening. But are we giving up or are there more things to try? Should I subscribe to kernel hackers and report the problem directly there?
The mem= shouldnt be affecting that behaviour unless this laptop is putting ACPI stuff very very low in memory. If its doing that then I have no further ideas. Posting it to l/k is worthwhile
I've done a little bit of work on this one. I can get RedHat 6.2 on it. I'm just having a hard time with it saying my boot partition is too large. Anyways, I updated my bios per Alan's request. That didn't help anything. Next idea?
This bug is not yet fixed. I am not sure exactly what to do. It doesn't work in RedHat 7.2.
HEY! This works. I had to do a linux nousb on installer bootup (at least installer, but I'm still waiting for it to finish install to see if I always need nousb). I'm happy now.