Cannot mount installation CD after boot on HP PA-RISC

eehmke · n00b Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 13

I try to install Gentoo Linux on my Hp PA-RISC workstation.
It has a PA7300LC cpu, and the install cd is install-hppa-minimal-2005.1.iso.
I have attached an external Sun SCSI CD drive to the box. I can boot from that
device, the installation kernel loads until the point where it tries to
mount the cdrom. It tries several devices like /dev/cdroms/cdrom0,
/dev/sg0 etc and finally gives up. At that point a root shell is offered
with some minimal commands. Also manually I am not able to mount the cdrom at
that point. Must I supply some special boot parameters, and which?
Regards
Eggert

HPRichard · Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:21 pm Post subject:

I cannot state what exactly causes your problem, but it could be that the kernel of the install CD does not sport the driver for your SCSI chipset. (the kernel itself is loaded via firmware routines) For narrowing the problem down it would be very helpful if you could state which workstation you have as there is a large variety of computers carrying that CPU.

It would also be helpful to know to which SCSI bus the CD-ROM drive is connected, as some of these workstations sport two different SCSI buses (a Single Ended SCSI-2 one and a Fast-Wide SCSI-2 one).

eehmke · n00b Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 13

The workstation is a B132+, cpuinfo tells:
cat /proc/cpuinfo:
processor : 0
cpu family : PA-RISC 1.1e
cpu : PA7300LC (PCX-L2)
cpu MHz : 132.000000
model : 9000/778/B132L+
model name : Merlin L2+ 132 (9000/778/B132L)
hversion : 0x00005030
The workstation has a narrow and a wide SCSI bus, the drive is connected to the narow. At the cdrom drive there is a terminator on the second connector. The SCSI ID is 6, as recognized by the IPL.

eehmke · n00b Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 13

Ok, in the end I replaced the external Sun Cd drive by a Nec drive, now it works. Thanks for all suggestions.

I KNOW the Sun drive has been working in the past!
Eggert