[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       linux-smp
Subject:    Saga of `Can boot from floppy but not from SCSI HDD'
From:       getrhd () terrorist ! math ! ntu ! edu ! tw
Date:       1998-08-31 5:02:25
[Download RAW message or body]

This is strictly speaking not a Linux problem, but ... well, I am
nearly at wits' end.  I had put together a machine as follows:

SuperMicro P6DOF motherboard (Orion chipset), PPro166 x2, Tekram 390U
SCSI-UW card (NCR875 chipset), Seagate Hawk 4 SCA drive (4GB) adapted
to 68-pin, Seagate Elite 9 Wide (9GB), 32MB parity SIMM x8, DE-220 NIC
(NE2000 clone), 3C905 NIC, Toshiba16x SCSI CD-ROM, Matrox Mill II 8MB.

[1] I had trouble installing Red Hat 5.1, as I always got hung-up at
    the SCSI probe stage.  It turned out that this is due to a strange
    2068 byte sector size.  Since I cannot change the sector size with
    the BIOS of the Tekram controller, I got an Adaptec AHA-2940UW to
    format it to the more usual 512 byte.  

    NOTE: It appears that the smaller sector size made the capacity of
    the disk smaller as well (8.4G instead of 9G) but it's fine by me.

    I started to install Red Hat again, and I couldn't get past POST.
    I remembered that I was booting from bootdisk and not from CD-ROM
    and switched to booting from floppy.  Strangely, I boot fine if I
    either (a) disable the SMP protocol in the BIOS, or (b) boot from
    a boot floppy.  However, while I can complete the install fine, I
    cannot boot from the harddisk into LILO unless I disable SMP!

[2] I got very frustrated at not being able to see both processors, so
    I switched processors from another machine I have, because I felt
    that stepping-7 + stepping-9 might be a mismatch.  Turned out that
    it didn't matter!  I booted fine with either PPro I currently have
    or another stepping7 PPro from another machine, from either socket
    matching either VRM.  So it wasn't THAT problem either.

[3] I started suspecting the Tekram card, so I pulled it and put it in
    a very similar machine (the one from which I borrowed the 2940UW)
    which had been running Linux on two PPros and 256MB just fine for
    a year, it did not boot (although the POST screen did appear).  I
    reinstalled the 2940UW, and everything went back to normal here.

[4] I decided to do a low-level format with the Tekram card on both of
    the hard drives.  Then I actually managed to finish an Red Hat 5.1
    install starting from my bootdisk (BIOS SMP still enabled) and was
    again unable to boot SMP.  However, I found that I *COULD* boot if
    I used a boot floppy made from the other machine (this kernel have
    both NCR8xx and AIC7xxx drives compiled in).  The machine seems to
    work just fine, detecting both CPUs.

[5] I pulled the AHA2940UW from the other machine and put it into this
    machine.  This time I get past the POST screen -- but get stuck at
    LI (with enabled SMP; without it I boot fine into Linux straight).
    I can still boot from bootdisk into Linux with SMP enabled.

Question: Is this an incompatibility problem between AIC7xxx formatted
drives and NCR formatted drives??  Has anyone run into a similar one?

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]