vl 5.9 & vl 5.9 light beta1 not installing on toshiba notebook

[wph]

Hi,

I asked about this awhile back when trying to install for my toshiba 1550 cds satellite. When trying to install vl 5.9 or 5.9 light, i get to the installation begin screen. I press [enter] to begin installation, and then get a fatal error saying that somethign about the hardware is unrecognised and that the installer can't deal with it. Using the console that comes up, I try probedisk and nothing is returned - its as if it can't see the hard drive of CD at all. Yet, vl 5.8 has installed fine on this machine, and the installation cd's boot up properly.

here is the link to my earlier posts on this subject:

http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=5128.msg34890#msg34890


I'm very interested in 5.9 light.

I tried lspci -v and here are the results:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems CPU to PCI and PCI to ISA bridge (rev 02)
00:08.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. ViRGE/MX (rev 06)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 02)
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 10)
00:10.0 IDE interface: Toshiba America Info Systems Extended IDE Controller (rev 34)
00:13.0 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC95 (rev 07)
00:13.1 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC95 (rev 07)


root:# lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems CPU to PCI and PCI to ISA bridge (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Unknown device 0001
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

00:08.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. ViRGE/MX (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems ViRGE/MX
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64
        Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64M]
        Expansion ROM at 18000000 [disabled] [size=64K]

00:0b.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 02) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems USB
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        Memory at f7fff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems ES1978 Maestro-2E Audiodrive
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at ff00 [size=256]
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:10.0 IDE interface: Toshiba America Info Systems Extended IDE Controller (rev 34) (prog-if f0)
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Unknown device 0002
        Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 64
        I/O ports at 1800 [size=16]

00:13.0 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC95 (rev 07)
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Satellite Pro
        Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
        Memory at 18010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0
        Memory window 0: 10000000-11fff000 (prefetchable)
        Memory window 1: 12000000-13fff000
        I/O window 0: 00001000-000010ff
        I/O window 1: 00001400-000014ff
        16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001

00:13.1 CardBus bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems ToPIC95 (rev 07)
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Satellite Pro
        Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
        Memory at 18011000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=05, subordinate=08, sec-latency=0
        Memory window 0: 14000000-15fff000 (prefetchable)
        Memory window 1: 16000000-17fff000
        I/O window 0: 00001c00-00001cff
        I/O window 1: 00002000-000020ff
        16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001


****

somewhere I saw reference to a utility which lists the hardware of a machine, but I'velost that reference. Can you offer any help about this installation/hardware issue.

thanks

[uelsk8s]

what do you have installed on the computer now?
what are the partitions and HD sizes?

[wph]

I'm running (happily)  vl 5.8 std with fluxbox and sometimes xfce

hd config (from cfdisk)

                              Disk Drive: /dev/hda
                        Size: 4327464960 bytes, 4327 MB
              Heads: 255   Sectors per Track: 63   Cylinders: 526


    Name        Flags      Part Type  FS Type          [Label]        Size (MB)
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    hda1        Boot        Primary   Linux ext3                        3002.23
    hda2                    Primary   Linux swap                         509.97
    hda3                    Primary   Linux ext3                         814.31

fdisk -l returns:

Disk /dev/hda: 4327 MB, 4327464960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 526 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1         365     2931831   83  Linux
/dev/hda2             366         427      498015   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda3             428         526      795217+  83  Linux


here's the output from 'free':

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        156976     152016       4960          0       7144      97264
-/+ buffers/cache:      47608     109368
Swap:       498004          0     498004


probedisk (in vl 5.8 ) returns:

root:# probedisk
/dev/hdc|cdrom|TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-1902B
/dev/hda|disk|TOSHIBA MK4309MAT

in the console when the 5.9 install fails, probedisk returns nothing

[uelsk8s]

are you planning on replacing your 5.8 on hda1?
can you mount your hda1 from the 5.9 cd and run the probedisk on hda1 to see if it gives the same output?

Thanks,
Uelsk8s

[wph]

I booted from the vl 5.9 light beta1 cd.
The error message came up again, and then I could drop into the busybox console
Running probedisk from there returns a blank response
I created a dir 'hd' in /mnt and appended:
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hd ext3 defaults

to /etc/fstab  (which only had the one line in it, 'none .... etc)
when I try mounting /dev/hda1  I get : invalid block device

I tried
dmesg|grep hd   (which returned nothing I thinl)
dmesg|grep ide returned
Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes, otherwise use ide=xx  (or something like that)

When I reboot into VL 5.8,
dmesg|grep hd returns:

wph:$ dmesg|grep hd
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x1800-0x1807, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x1808-0x180f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
hda: TOSHIBA MK4309MAT, ATA DISK drive
hdc: TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-1902B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 8452080 sectors (4327 MB), CHS=8944/15/63, UDMA(33)
hda: cache flushes not supported
 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3
hdc: ATAPI 24X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache, UDMA(33)
EXT3 FS on hda1, internal journal
Adding 498004k swap on /dev/hda2.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:498004k
EXT3 FS on hda3, internal journal


** what is meant by the references to hdb & hdd - are they some kind of alternative access to the hda & hdc using pio mode? should these be disabled or something in the bios if I can?)

thanks for your responses

[uelsk8s]

you can ignore the references to hdb & hdd its just saying they are on the ide controllers

try booting the cd again and this time making the device nodes for your HD

Code:

mknod /dev/hda b 3 0
mknod /dev/hda1 b 3 1
mknod /dev/hda2 b 3 2
mknod /dev/hda3 b 3 3

then try probedisk
if it doesnt work try mounting /dev/hda1 with the mount command

Code:

mount /dev/hda1/ /mnt/target

and try running probedisk from there

[wph]

The nodes were already created. I 'rm'd the nodes and made them again as per your post
probedisk returned nothing

mount /mnt/hda1 /mnt/target returned
"Invalid block device"

I put my usb drive into the usb port, and mounted
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/target

as was able to read my usb drive properly

any attempts at mounting hda*  I keep getting invalid block device.

[uelsk8s]

can you try using the kernel from the 5.9 light iso there?
mount the cd copy the kernel to /boot then add the kernel to lilo with the same info as the first linux entry

[wph]

do you mean using the 5.9 kernel in the vl 5.8 installation?

[uelsk8s]

yes

[wph]

I wasn't 100% sure of how to do this - this is what I did.

1) i create a subdirectory in the boot directory (called it 59)
2) I copied the file 'sata' from the isolinux/kernel folder on the cdrom into /boot/59
3) I duplicated the linux gui entry in /etc/lilo.conf and modified the line to point to  the boot image to /boot/59/sata
4) I ran lilo
5) I had to comment out the spash screen stuff.
6) I rebooted
7) results:
It found the kernel OK and booted up to and past the md:detecting RAID arrays  section
Messages:
RAMDISK - couldn't find a valid Ramdisk image starting at 0
VFS: Cannot open root device "301" or unknown-block(3,1)
Kernel Panic - not syncing VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,1)

and the system hangs.

Well, clearly the boot is able to see the hard drive as the boot image loaded and ran - beyond that I don't know what to think.

cheers

Message:

[uelsk8s]

well that means your ide controller is not "in" the kernel anymore, I honestly dont know why it isnt.

You have a few choices to make if you want to use 5.9 there.
1) install with 5.8 using vinstall-iso and use the 5.8 kernel in 5.9
2) boot a 5.9 livecd and find the module that is loaded and build an initrd to use the default 5.9 kernel.
3) build a custom kernel for your 5.9

[wph]

I truly appreciate your persistence and quite responses.  #2 is not possible as the cd rom isn't detected - I can't start 5.9 on the livecd for the same reasons I think.

#1 would initially be the simplest - are there any implications or problems using the 5.8 kernel in a 5.9 installation?

#3 I would have to look at more carefully - its been a good while since I built a kernel - I guess the idea would be then to simply rewrite the cd but include the custom kernel?

Are there any easy how-tos to recompile the kernel?  and finally would it be possible for me to build the kernel on my virtual machine (i have 5.9 running in a vm on my winxp machine) or does it need to have the hardware present when it compiles.

Thanks again for your help - I think I may have to use that paypal button.

cheers

[uelsk8s]

#2 is not possible as the cd rom isn't detected - I can't start 5.9 on the livecd for the same reasons I think.

the livecd should start and run because it uses the cdrom the same way the non-livecd does.

#1 would initially be the simplest - are there any implications or problems using the 5.8 kernel in a 5.9 installation?

There should not be, but honestly I have never tried.

#3 I would have to look at more carefully - its been a good while since I built a kernel - I guess the idea would be then to simply rewrite the cd but include the custom kernel?

The easiest way would be to simply use the .config from the 5.8 kernel that works with your hardware.
then its as easy as 1)extracting the kernel sources 2)running make && make modules_install

[wph]

Sorry about belabouring this. If I was able to compile a new kernel (or decide to use the 5.8 kernel)  is the only necesary file to copy, the boot image vmlinuz... in the boot folder?

#1. would I be able to copy an install CD onto a hard drive, add the vmlinuz... to the kernel folder and then reburn it, then elect to use that file when booting the installcd?
#2. If I use vinstall-iso  under 5.8  how do I get the kernel into the new setup?

I appreciate your help.