LSI SAS1068E cannot boot on HP Workstation xw9400 [Solved]

asg719 · Last edited by asg719 on Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:47 am; edited 2 times in total

I give up, this is totally driving me crazy. The live cd sees it but when I goto compile my own kernel the driver loads but it never sees the drive. This is a Serial Attached SCSI controller set up in RAID 1. I've compiled in the modules to the kernel, tried adding them to the initrd but nothing seems to work. I even took the .config from the livecd and tried that but that doesn't work. The driver is the mptsas, I have no problems using Red Hat Ent 4 with this RAID card so I'm at a total loss. Anybody have any exp with this card? All the threads I've found about this card say these issues should have been resolved in the 2.6.16 branch of the kernel but that doesn't seem to be my exp. I'm using Gentoo Sources 2.6.17-r8, I've tried the 2.6.16.x vanilla branch too with no luck.

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

I am having the same problem w/ the same card. I *think* I am installing the right drivers but I keep getting the /dev/sd* is an invalid block device.

At least I am not the only on eh?

asg719 · Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 7:23 pm Post subject:

I think this has to do with genkernel going from udev to mdev, of course the old udev version of genkernel is no longer in portage. Not really sure if I can prove it but there is no reason this shouldn't work. I took the exact kernel from Red Hat 4 and compiled it using the config red hat provides under gentoo but using genkernel instead of how redhat does it and the device doesn't come up so it's not a kernel issue as fas as I can tell. The device nodes must not be getting created correctly.

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

I figured out my issue, when I booted the liveCD it mounted my drives as /dev/sdb, but after I finished with the installation the drives were mounted as /dev/sda and I didn't realize it. Once I changed my grub.conf file everything booted correctly.

Not sure it is the same issue you are having, but did you make sure to compile in the MPT Fusion drivers and the new LSI drivers?

asg719 · Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 8:20 pm Post subject:

Yeah the are compiled in and they even load on boot but no device nodes ever show up. Usually when I look at the dmesg I see the driver mapping the nodes out. Here is what the dmesg of RHEL4 looks like

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

whats your grub.conf look like?

asg719 · Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 9:47 pm Post subject:

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

I am guessing that you are using an software raid and I am not sure how that works/ how to point to it from from grub

I would guess that if it boots from the liveCD the drivers are there but your real_root is off, but I don't know for sure

asg719 · Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:05 pm Post subject:

The config is fine, I can take the redhat kernel, from redhat mind you, and put it in that grub and it will boot gentoo except it doesn't work 100% for various reasons. So I know my grub is correct. There is something wrong with how the initramfs is getting created, and it seems there are a lot of similar issues out there. From what I can tell genkernel 3.4 shouldn't be stable and I am still going to try and downgrade it but I don't know how much success I am going to have there. FWIW Ubuntu can't see it either and it also loads the drivers too so there is something wrong out there with this combo of hardware and bleeding edge software.

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

ok what about manually compiling the kernel, that way you wouldn't be using genkernel or initramfs at all.

asg719 · Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 12:30 am Post subject:

I've tried that too, didn't work. I just took apart the initrd for redhat and it is using udev and my initrd isn't so I'm going to try and hack that in and see what happens.

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

hmm have you tried a newer/different kernel like

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.18-r2

asg719 · Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 9:46 pm Post subject:

asg719 · Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 12:24 am Post subject:

Ok I compiled the mptsas drivers and scsi drivers into the latest kernel and still no love, I am getting really anoyed with this.

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

so I am running out of ideas, any thoughts about trying lilo?

I am not sure what else to say but if the liveCD works and the drivers are there it should work. What message do you get when if fails to boot?

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

And I am surprised no one else had chimed in with any suggestions, we are waiting for some guru to tell us what the issue is. Just to recap asg719 thinks this is a kernel issue. I think it is a grub issue. And we are apparently both wrong :?:

We should take a poll to try and get more ideas going

asg719 · Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 4:16 am Post subject:

Not sure if it's a kernel issue, more like a kernel configuration issue. I just can't the device to initialize the drives and when the drivers load I just get something like this

asg719 · Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:00 pm Post subject:

Well here is some more info, Ubuntu, FC6 don't see the device either and it doesn't show up in lspci -n. When booted into Red Hat here is the output of lspci -vv

asg719 · Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:20 pm Post subject:

I feel like I'm talking to myself here but more info, the live cd 2006.1 doesn't show the device in lspci whereas the other livecd does. That live cd uses a 2.6.16.10 kernel vs 2.6.17-gentoo-r7 kernel. Going to mess with some kernel options and see what happens.

asg719 · Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:50 am Post subject:

While googling around I came across this thread for a similar model xw9300

http://www.gatago.com/linux/kernel/18503357.html

I turned ACPI Segmentation off in the bios and the sucker came right up. I haven't tried the pci=noacpi with ACPI Segmentation turned on but I image it would work if I needed ACPI Segmentation on. Thanks to bgregorcy for trying to help me as he was the only one. Hope this thread helps others with similar hardware.

bgregorcy · n00b Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 61 Location: SLC

dude sweet......

for all those that voted I was wrong

RexAtHighSpeed · n00b Joined: 09 Nov 2002 Posts: 52 Location: Charlotte, NC

Hello Gents,

I am about to attempt to install Gentoo on my xw9400. I've only installed Gentoo a few times and this machine is pretty complicated. Can you guys post your config files? Like your Grub, xorg and kernel configs?

It would be greatly appreciated! Any other advice would be valuable as well.