Very Computer

In the continuing saga, going for several days and many frustrating hours whilst I built
kernels and generally fumbled in confusion, being a Linux newbie...

Two kind souls out there in newsland today pointed out that the current IDE/ATAPI drivers in
Linux are unable to interface to a drive jumpered as a SLAVE device connected as the first
and perhaps only drive on the second IDE chain.

So, I moved the jumper and booted for the ba-zillionth time.

!!!!!WAH-LAH!!!!!!! Mounted, worked. Guess I'm not as stupid as I thought I was.

Gosh, everyone *knows* about the MASTER/SLAVE thang.

So, Linux gurus, please make this prominent in the FAQs, which I had scanned at length.

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So, now I am off to loading Infomagic's stuff.
Looking for a good window manager - I use X/Motif at work.
Recommendations? Looking for something a bit, er, more sophisticated than fvwm.

Thanks again to the net'ers for the jumper help.

regards,

'Bet you didn't read it, did you!
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For Linux IDE (big/many) help, see:  /usr/src/linux/drivers/block/README.ide
For latest Linux kernels: ftp.cs.helsinki.fi:/pub/Software/Linux/Kernel/v1.[23]

Quote:>Two kind souls out there in newsland today pointed out that the current >IDE/ATAPI drivers in
>Linux are unable to interface to a drive jumpered as a SLAVE device >connected as the first and perhaps only drive on the second IDE chain.

Quote:>So, now I am off to loading Infomagic's stuff.

Help, I am loosing too much sleep and I am always late to work.

THANKS

Quote:>Two kind souls out there in newsland today pointed out that the current

Quote:>Linux are unable to interface to a drive jumpered as a SLAVE device connected
as the first
>and perhaps only drive on the second IDE chain.

Rob McKnight

The problem is that the current IDE drivers apparently insist on detecting the drive
during booting and cannot "see" an ATAPI CD-ROM which is jumpered for SLAVE mode
and connected to IDE chain #2.

Supposedly this is mentioned in readme.ide.
I did a find on readme.ide for the entire disk #1 of slackware.
Someone said the SLAVE jumper gotcha is there.
Did not find a readme.ide.
Must be buried in a tar file somewhere.

1. I am using a kernel built by saying yes to make config's queries about ATAPI CD-ROM.
I am fairy certain that this is essentially the same kernel as is idecd on the slackware CD.

2. The CD-ROM is jumpered as MASTER and connected to the 2nd IDE chain; my motherboard
has two IDE chains. I wondered if your system has but one - if so, HD is master, CD
must be, er, I don't know.

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                          (! !)
+---------------------oo00-(_)-00oo----------------------------------+

+---> Hard Data - 403-456-1510                                   <---+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Just a little note here, I have the Linux Universe, live file system
cd, and after booting with loadlin for the installation, and then
BootBlock to boot to the partition, it recognized my ACER ATAPI
cd-rom, jumpered as slave on the second controller just fine. however
Slackware wouldn't see the drive at all, jumpered as master even.
(June infomagic), but not to fear, I have the new infomagic winging
it's way to me this week, so I should be able to do a full install...
:)

Mark

: Thanks for the info.  But I missed the original posts and I'm confused.  What
: exactly couldn't you do?  If I understand this, you had the CD cabled as the
: first drive on a secondary IDE controller, but had it jumpered as a slave.  
: And Linux choked on that.  Is that correct?

So what is the solution?