Hi Marco, CD is primary because as slave the 2nd HDD disappears. This way although the BIOS can't autodetect the CD, it finds it on boot up. When I installed the 2nd HDD, I thought that the HDD was the problem & replaced it, but the new one behaved just the same. So I left it as it is now and thought no more of it. Windows worked okay like that (well, as well as it ever does), so I left it. I've just tried to install Red Hat and have come across a different, but similar problem. The setup hangs when I get to try to install from CD. I've got Debian loaded (using dbc=cdrom), but I get the same timeout messages when I try to access the CD. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's a) a 'feature' of Linux, b) a duff CD drive, or c) a duff ide controller. 'c' seems less likely as I'm sure I tried all combinations and got the same trouble on the 1st controller. Trouble is I don't know Linux at all, and this seems to be too much of a 'newbie' problem to get much response. Windows is getting up my nose and I can't get Linux to work - maybe I ought to go back to DOS 3.0 and microstar ;-) Thanks for your help, and if you or anyone else has any ideas, or anywhere else I can go to ask my stupid questions, I'd be very grateful,
Ian Reply to: ian.bambury @virgin.net -------------------------------------- ------------ Original Message ----------------------- As I said before, I'm a complete novice at Debian Linux. Once I'm set up it'll be a bit better as I have worked on a Unix box before. System: Intel 233mmx 32Mb HD as Primary on 1st controller Pioneer DR-A24X CDrom as Pri on 2nd Hd as slave on 2nd The cdrom is badged as a Pioneer (and shows up on boot as one) but loads gscdrom.sys so I presume it's got Goldstar connections somewhere. On boot: Loading root.bin.......... Loading Linux............... hdc shows up as Pioneer Get past Color screen Get Release notes Get detecting hardware settings Then... hdc: irq timeout: status=0x51 hdc: irq timeout: error 0x20 hdc: irq timeout: status=0x51 <snip> end_request: IO/error, dev 16:00, sector 0 hdc: irq timeout: status=0x51 hdc: irq timeout: status=0x51 hdc: irq timeout: status=0x51 hdc: irq timeout: status=0x51 hdc ATAPI reset complete above 5 lines repeat ad infinitum Any ideas? Or places to go for help? I found the archives and read about 3 months-worth, but can't find anything similar. ------------------ ends ------------------------ > >just a question: why did you have your cd as primary and an Hd as secondary? >If it's ide/atapi, it doesn't matter what brand name it has >I'm not an expert, but you could: >- try to put a disk (a cd-rom) into the drive before booting >- detach cdrom and see if you machine boots cleany > >HTH > >-- >|| || ||||||| Marco Frattola Microsoft is not the answer >||`..'|| |||... Piacenza, Italy Microsoft is the question >||| ||| |||'' [EMAIL PROTECTED] "No" is the answer >||| ||| ||| www.enjoy.it/users/~mk/index.html Live Linux, live free! > -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
