LiveCD boot crash

[Mad]Masenko · n00b Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 40

I'm trying to install gentoo on an old IBM PC Server 325 (8639ES0) via the LiveCD (2004.0).
The system has a ServeRAID (1) which runs a raid5 of 4 SCSI drives (the only HDs in the system). The CD-ROM is also SCSI and runs off the onboard SCSI controller.

If the ServeRAID card is not in the system (which is a problem as there are then no hard drives) the LiveCD boots fine (as well as other distros). But once its in, i get this:

ISOLINUX 2.08 2003-12-12 Copyright (C) 1994-2003 H. Peter Anvin
Gentoo Linux 2004.0 Livecd http://www.gentoo.org/
Enter to boot: F1 for kernals F2 for options
boot:
Loading gentoo................
Loading gentoo.igz...............................................................
Ready.

And then the system halts (even alt-ctrl-del doesn't work) and this happens with all distros booted from the CD-ROM. If I boot linux from a floppy it reports a page fault a bit further into the boot sequence.

I was thinking I should flash the ServeRAID's bios with the latest updates, but since the bios update disk fails to boot (has same problem as above - uses vmlinux) I can't even do that.

Anyone got any idea of how I can fix/get around this?

dkaplowitz · Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:46 am Post subject:

Linux RAID isn't my strong suit, but there is an option to boot the live cd with the no-scsi option (gentoo no-scsi I believe), which might at least get you further into setup to allow you to probe for the device. Just a shot in the dark.
_________________
http://dkap.info

[Mad]Masenko · n00b Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 40

I eventually fixed the problem. I poped the raid card into a new machine and when I booted, it said the CRC-check failed for the bios; and then it booted normally. I was able to flash the bios and now it works perfectly in the server. Thanks for the help anyway.