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The eternal Adaptec problem - a possible solution

The eternal Adaptec problem - a possible solution

Post by James A Wild » Fri, 21 Jul 2000 04:00:00



My setup:  Fujitsu H532i Team Server with twin 100 MHz Pentium processors
and twin on-board Adaptec AIC7870 SCSI chips.  Bios is 1.00.10 GPO and SCSI
bios is Adaptecs 1.26sP8.  The first SCSI channel has 4 x 2 Gb Seagate hard
drives, 1 Matshita CD-ROM drive and 1 HP tape drive.

Installation of RH 6.2 has consistently stalled on trying to scan the SCSI
setup.  Message is parity error on message-in.  Doug Ledford's heroic
efforts have not solved the problem for this machine, and a few others which
I have heard about.  But thanks anyway, Doug.

Acting on a suggestion from Knut Stormkartr I tried earlier versions of RH
Linux.  5.0 and 5.1 would install but not 5.2 on my machine.  Since I don't
have a cd for 5.1 and haven't yet found an iso image this version never
reached completion but it was not a SCSI problem that stopped it.  I have
now managed to install Red Hat version 5.0, kernel 2.0.32.  The only problem
I had is that it thinks my 3C905 NIC is a 3C509, which is a pity.

Knut reports to me that he could install 5.1 and 5.2 (he doesn't say
anything about 5.0) and subsequently upgrade to 6.1.  It may also be
important that he has a 2740 card.

That's it, for what it is worth to any other unfortunates struggling with
the same problem.

What I want to do now is find out how to upgrade to 6.2, bypassing the SCSI
scan at the beginning of the process.  If anyone has any ideas on this I'd
be grateful.  Can it be as easy as replacing the directory structure on my
hard disks with the equivalent directories from the 6.2 cd and replacing the
kernel?  Or is the scsi handling built in to the kernel which means patching
the 6.2 source with the 5.0 scsi routines?

TIA
--

mvh/regards

James

 
 
 
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1. Problems installing to Promise PDC 20276 + possible solution

I've been working with Linux for about a year now, and have had a fair
ammount of luck with it.  I recently upgraded my motherboard and am no
longer able to install RedHat onto it.  I've got the downloaded
version of RedHat 8.0, here is my current hardware, the problem bit of
hardware given a * by it.

 AMD 1.1 GHz T-bird processor
 256 DDR2700
 SimpleTech Simplestation PCMCIA to PCI bridge (haven't checked it,
but it's currently unplugged)
 Iomega Zip100(slave on cable with CD/RW) works
 aopen CD/RW(Master on IDE1) works
 off-brand DVD(master on IDE2) works
 Conexant HSF modem works thanks to MBSI
 3Com 3C905C-TX-M works, but not needed
 ASUS A7V333
   Promise PDC 20276*
 30GB Maxtor 7200RPM (Promise IDE1 master)
 40GB Maxtor 7200RPM (Promise IDE2 Master)

I have a Promise Ultra 100 TX2 available to use (somewhere around this
dump), aparrently it is supported, but not to boot from.  I haven't
tried it, because once I've got all my hardware in, there isn't enough
ventilation.

I have tried installs where the Promise 20276 controller keeps the
drives seperate, and together as a striped raid.  When running the
drives as seperate drives, it will go through things as normal, but
when it comes to transferring image to the hard drive, it can't read
new partition tables, or initialize swap space.  I have tried every
combination I can think of, all to no avail.  As I have been doing
research, I found the following, but I am not sure what to do with the
information on www.kernel.org :

Extract from Kernel 2.4.20 changelog


  o Do not state that 2.4 is under active development on
"SubmittingDrivers" documentation file
  o Fix misuse of types in brlvger
  o Do not skip Promise ataraid's: they used to work fine with pdcraid
  o Changed EXTRAVERSION to pre11
  o Add PCI ID for SiS 646
  o Undo DMI updates. Its 2.4.21-pre stuff

Extract from Kernel 2.5.18-pre


        [PATCH] 2.5.7 IDE 23

        - Support for additional Promise controller id's (PDC20276).

I'm not sure if this is of any use, but from what I understand, I need
to have 2.5.18 in-place before attempting any kind of install with
RedHat.  It appears the problem is in the kernel and not the installer
as others in the various groups have suggested for similar problems,
since I have encountered similar problems with Mandrake 9.0, and I
believe the kernel that both use is fairly close in version.

My thoughts are, to get the kernel up to 2.5.18, and somehow convince
RedHat to use that kernel for installing.  I'm sure that somehow it's
possible, but I have no idea how to do it.  Simply upgrading
post-install isn't an option, since I can't install to begin with.
Any suggestions would be welcome... if you got it to work just fine,
please tell me what and how, not just that it works... since it
doesn't work here.

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