There are a number of possible causes depending where exactly the hang is
occurring.
One thing to consider is IDE addressing limitations. The most recent of
problems has been the 32G limit (16 heads * 63 sector/track * 65536
cylinders * 512 bytes/sector I believe). Neither the Promise Ultra66 nor
the Ultra100 should have problems with this even if installed on an older
computer. (I once had a IBM ATA-100 75GXP 45 Gb on a Promise Ultra66 on
Pentium 133 MHz system without having problems.) I know of no 64G limit.
The next limit for IDE that I am aware of is 127G (16 heads * 255
sectors/track * 65536 cylinders * 512 bytes/sector = 127.5G for physical
addressing).
You should at least get to the lilo prompt. If the BIOS recognizes the
card, but not the hard drive, check connections and jumper settings.
If you get to the lilo prompt, but the system kernel panics while booting,
then there are a couple of things to check for:
1. If you originally installed on another Ultra66 controller (not Ultra33)
then the Mandrake install would have added boot parameters for the Ultra66
controller which would throw things off. In this case you would need to
move the drive back the Ultra66 controller, modify /etc/lilo.conf so that
you had no extra IDE parameters and rerun lilo (type lilo at the command
prompt). Reboot on Ultra66 controller to make sure that everything still
works and then switch over to the Ultra100 controller. (You might even want
to see what address ranges your Ultra100 takes up just in case you decide to
change the IDE parameters instead of removing them, but I would expect this
to get messy pretty easily.)
2. If you installed on an integrated Ultra33/66 controller and you are
moving the drive out to the Ultra100 controller then there are a couple of
things that you can do. One is to move the drive back to its original
position (jumper setting and all) and then stick another drive on the
Ultra100 controller (even a CD-ROM drive that is Ultra33 or PIO DMA 2 should
work for this). Under Mandrake try to mount the drive (like /dev/hde or
whatever). This is the easy way to check to make sure that the patch is
really working. (You should also be able to see the Promise device under
/proc/pci.) Or you can type in at the lilo prompt "linux root=/dev/hdXX"
where XX is the device that the root partition is located. (Do not type in
the quotes.) Keep in mind that what used to be /dev/hda on the integrated
Ultra33/66 controller will be /dev/hde on the Promise controller. If you
have more than one partition on the hard drive you will get error messages
still until /etc/fstab is updated (by you), but you should be able to come
up far enough to enter maintenance mode.
If this doesn't help please e-mail this forum again with the most detailed
info that you can give me.
Terje Bjerkelia wrote:
> Patching the 2.2.16 did work. The Ultra100 card is now detected during
> the boot sequence, but a new problem has occured:
>
> After the Promise card is detected the system hangs. It seems like my
> HD (IBM ATA-100 75GXP 75 Gb) can't be found.
>
> Anyone Who know what I can do to make the HD "visible"?
>
> At 07:13 08.08.2000 -0700, you wrote:
> >Promise does support the Linux community. Linux ATA/100 support was
> >announced on /. just after 7.1 was released or at least just around the
> >same time. This means that the Mandrake folks probably didn't get a
> >chance to incorporate it into the stock 7.1 distro. Try installing mdk
> >7.1 on a lesser controllor (ultra33/66) and then try out the 2.2.16
> >kernel. If that doesn't work try to patch a virgin kernel source with
> >the ATA/100 patch for the 2.2.15 kernel or wait for 7.2.
> >
> >Terje Bjerkelia wrote:
> >
> > > I've just purchased an Ultra ATA/100 Controller and a
> > > ATA/100 drive.
> > >
> > > When I try to install 7.1 it can't detect the Promise controller.
> > >
> > > Anyone who knows if it's possible (and how) to get this to
> > > work.
> > >
> > > Terje
