Re: booting with 3 controlers

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Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 00:53:12 +0000 (UTC)

[.setup added because it seemed about as appropriate as .hardware and no
solution seems forthcoming from the .hardware crowd]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 14:46:58 +0200, Hans-Juergen Lange <Hans-Juergen.Lange@gmx.de> wrote:
>Eric Edwards wrote:
>> I have three controllers on my Mandrake 10.2 system.
>>
>> 1) Adaptec hpt370 based raid controller
>> 2) SiI680 based raid controller used as non-raid
>> 3) VIA vt8235 on-board IDE controller
>>
>> Boot disk is on the VIA. Without the other controllers, the boot disk
>> would be /dev/hda. CD is /dev/hdc
>>
>> I can boot with either one of the PCI controlers and the VIA. But if I put
>> in both, the kernel panics after pivotroot fails.
>>
>> If I boot from the CD, I can see that the hpt370 takes up hda-d and the
>> Sil680 is hde-h. It stands to reason that the boot disk should be hdi
>> but it is not listed and the rescue menu refuses to re-install lilo
>> claiming it can't find the boot disk.
>>
>> It seems to me that I ought to be able to boot the system if I modify my
>> lilo entry to have root=/dev/hdi1
>> Unfortunately, lilo refuses to install the boot block saying:
>> Fatal: Illegal 'root=' specification: /dev/hdi1
>> Maybe because there is not, at the time of execution, a /dev/hdi1?
>> If so, how can I tell lilo to stop second-guessing me and except that
>> there will be /dev/hdi1?
>>
>> Meanwhile, my unmodified Windows 2003 installation seems to have no
>> problem with any of this. It boot just fine, showing all 3 controllers.
>>
>> Suggestions?
>>
>
>hi,
>
>with rdev it should be possible to set any root device.
>use mknod to create the dev entry for your hdi1 partition and run lilo
>With kernel parameters it maybe possible to tell the kernel which
>controller is the first, second, third.

I managed to fake LILO out by linking /dev/hde to /dev/hdi.
Unfortunately, boot behavior is the same.

I get something like the following:

"Ext3-fs: mounted file system with ordered data mode
pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed:2
umount /initrd/proc failed : 2
freeing unused kernel memory: 132k freed
kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel
"

I cribbed this from another posting. I haven't found a means of
capturing the output of a boot process but it must exist.

In later runs I have discovered that the kernel does find and recognize
the VIA controller and the disk. It even assigns /dev/hdi to the boot
disk. Why it is unable to locate the root partition is still a mystery.
It would seem that there is a hard coded limitation that the root volume
must exist on either the first or second controller.

The bootparam man page lists no options to tell the kernel what order to
assign disk controllers. Any other suggestions?

-- 
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