-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi,

> Ive been wrestling with an Thinkpad T60 today.
That's the right word ;-)
> (I used the ISO image at http://ubertechnique.com/unattended/NTLDRNotFound
> for a newer kernel than 4.6 has) 
> 
> This is where things goes wrong:
> 
> ---------install.pl from line 1472-----------------
>         if (-e $settings_file) {
>             print "\nSetting C/H/S for $hda to 
> $cylinders/$bios_head/$bios_sect...";
>             open SETTINGS, ">$settings_file"
>                 or die "Unable to open $settings_file for writing: $^E";
>             printf SETTINGS "bios_cyl:%d bios_head:%d bios_sect:%d\n",
>             $cylinders, $bios_head, $bios_sect;
>             close SETTINGS
>                 or die "Unable to close $settings_file: $^E";
>             print "done.\n";
>         }
>         else {
>             # Non-IDE disk.  Should probably sanity-check kernel
>             # geometry against legacy BIOS geometry here.  FIXME.
>         }
> -------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I belive this is where unattended 'fools' parted to use correct disk 
> geometry for IDE disks. 
> Non-IDE disc systems end up in the commented out else .. :-/
> (at least this Thinkpad ends up here)
BTW. this is exactly the place (you wrote about this on 12/06/2006)
where this
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-parted/2004-07/msg00012.html
is done (by writing to "SETTINGS" i.e. /proc/ide/$sys_hda/settings)
But we must work out how and what to tell parted what it should use
on your thinkpads.


Did you read NOTES.txt under "linuxboot" - perhaps this clears
things a bit up.

> 
> Under startup Unattended reports 240 heads from legacy bios, but 255 heads 
> are 
> what parted writes to disk.. ..Windows install uses what the 'legacy bios' 
> reports and we get a 'NTLDR not found'  
> 
> So, how do we fool parted to use the correct geometry we already have at hand?
> 
> 
> This machine has to go back into production again asap, but I still have some 
> R52's with the same problem.

Ok, just some thoughts from me about this:

- - may be you could provide the right settings by changing install.pl
and setting the values e.g. in config.pl, if you know them (240
heads ...), so that parted uses them. If there is no other way,
parted can be patched, too, to use the needed values.

- - did you prove that it bails out in the else-clause
     "     # Non-IDE disk.  Should probably sanity-check kernel ..."
  and could you change the install.pl to print out the relevant
values at this stage? E.g. by
          printf "bios_cyl:%d bios_head:%d bios_sect:%d\n",
            $cylinders, $bios_head, $bios_sect;
          printf "hard drive: $hda   sys: $sys_hda\n";
 perhaps other variables, too.


- - if it really bails out at this else clause this means, that there
is no      /proc/ide/$sys_hda/settings
  so perhaps only the variable $sys_hda has to be corrected

- - since you can restart the process any time by starting
"/etc/master" on commandline, you may change install.pl and don't
have to reboot any time

- - please try to read/write mount a network drive in this situation
  and do    dmesg > dmesg.txt ; lsmod > lsmod.txt ; set > set.txt ;
      ls -lR /proc/ide >procide.txt
  and whatever relevant information you may find
  -> you can send it offlist, perhaps zip-files are not allowed.

- - perhaps we could trick parted to use the right heads/sectors by
  using $LEGACY_BIOS_HEAD heads and $LEGACY_BIOS_SECT

BTW: did you try e.g.
     dd if=/dev/zero  of=/dev/sda count=2000
and reboot before starting unattended?
> 
> 
> 
> Sidenote/workaround:
> 
> Use a Windows XP with sp2 integrated, start install, use FAT as filesystem.
> I used 20000 as size of partition.
> Let it do its thing untill the machine restarts and flip in a Knoppix cd 
> before it boots up.
> mount /dev/sda1 somewhere and delete boot.ini and the windows directory.
> Then use Unattended CD and do not touch partiton. skip format also :-)
So you have no pressure to get a solution ...

Best regards,
Falko


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)

iQEVAwUBRJApGYkcY98goEs/AQKUnAf/bkW8lQOQMVy1LPHisXdM3Wyqd2PIPS8q
CQDbcLE0Yw1hCNPI726o4meqG1fjMCog+4SLoXoz7GRVV2q2aXaGcf9irwYcVQXW
atBZwzIgPf1Lt6a66st/Al2xodNE1JhXHUGMdOumz9O68tsFlBoMJ+SsI8rqYl0J
0N2oYuFX24Gbp9dFxR77nxj7R0tVUWa1T6UVqLFDreA0MeQUqa8FytyXnle3NeZ4
EMd2ibrRCxY0C0T36aBDUVKs0AVMhUWnCnhxtsjxBZzAZBAJgZMtfstLnNcl9Yt1
lX8iYZLGtRk7ZlJDZNy8JtMzHXY+Yh4dzwdrTGZhcotFkBdV2iLtKQ==
=awFc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


_______________________________________________
unattended-devel mailing list
unattended-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-devel

Reply via email to