Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 54079
7.1 doesn't work with the Promise Ultra100TX2 card
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:37:23 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0) Description of problem: I successfully installed 7.1 from the Deluxe Workstation boxed set while my drive was connected to the primary onboard IDE controller (hda). When I installed the Promise Ultra100TX2 IDE controller and tried to start Linux, the process always terminates with a Kernel panic message. Since I use a start-up diskette, I can get to a "boot:" prompt and have tried several methods to get around the problem. None worked, including "linux ide2=noautotune", "linux nodma", "linux ide2=0x10d0,0x10c6" and "linux append root=/dev/hde7". (If it makes a difference, quote marks were not typed.) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Attach hard drive to Promise Ultra100TX2 controller. 2. Turn on computer. 3. Boot using start-up disk. Actual Results: Process stops with a Kernel panic message. Expected Results: Should have started Linux. Additional info: WD400 drive partitioned for Win98, Win2k Server (not yet installed) and Linux 7.1. Linux partitions are hda2 (/boot, 1Gb), hda7 (/root, 4Gb) and hda8 (SWAP, 1Gb). Promise says the card works with Linux, but perhaps an earlier version. Also: If you try to start the system with the drive connected to the Promise card and the Linux 7.1 CD1 in the CD-ROM drive, the system goes through its memory check, locates the attached components and then the Promise card looks for any attached drives. When this happens, you can hear the CD-ROM drive spin up. The process ends with a "Boot error" message every time. I get the impression that the Linux installation program tries to launch while the Promise card is doing its check and fails.
Created attachment 32798 [details] Promise document: Using Ultra100TX2 with Linux
[This may be a duplicate since I'm not sure what happened to this field when I submitted the attachment.] I had installed 7.1 when the drive had been connected to the onboard Primary Master IDE controller (hda). Then when I installed the Promise card, I could not get Linux to start. (Note that I was using the startup disk created when I installed 7.1.) To make a long story short, the correct command to use (for my system) at the "boot:" prompt presented by the startup disk is: "linux ide2=0x10d0,0x10c6 root=/dev/hde7" Do not use any quote marks. I then edited /etc/fstab to point "swap" to /dev/hde8 (instead of /dev/hda8). Finally, to automate the boot process, I changed the "append" line in syslinux.cfg (on the startup diskette) to read (without the quotes, of course) "append initrd=initrd.img root=/dev/hde7 ide2=0x10d0,0x10c6 ide3=0x10c8,0x10c2" The information about the "ide2=0x...." command was provided in a document from Promise (sent as an attachment). Note that, if you're trying to install Linux for the first time, you cannot boot from the CD ROM. The Promise controller seems to conflict with the boot process and everything terminates with a "Boot error" message. However, I suspect you can create the boot disk as described in the Installation Guide, issue the correct commands, and proceed with the installation.
I'm going to change the component to the kernel since you are seeing a kernel panic.
Any text in the panic that might give a hint on what is happening ? What's the last thing before the panic ?
As I reported, I do have everything working fine; it just required some tweaking by hand since the card isn't supported directly. Do you want me to recreate the conditions which caused the kernel panic message? (Not a problem if I boot using a diskette.) If so, how much of the text before the kernel panic notice do you want? Anything in particular? Are the messages displayed during the boot process saved in a file I can send to you?