On Thu, Sep 17, 1998 at 04:09:06PM -0500, Nathan E Norman wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Curt Daugaard wrote:
>
> [ snip ]
>
> : hd: controller still busy
> : hda: reset timed out: status=0xff { Busy DriveReady WriteFault
> : SeekComplete DataRequest CorrectedError Index Error }
> : hda: reset timed out: error=0xff { BadSector UncorrectableError
> : SectorIdNotFound DriveStatusError TrackZeroNotFound
> : AddrMarkNotFound }, CHS=65535/15/255, Sector=0
>
> Drive looks toasted. However ...
>
> : The weird thing: the CHS numbers don't match either what CMOS says
> : (under MSD in DOS) or what I pass to the kernel at the boot
> : prompt, i.e. hd=1010,12,55. (The drive is a WD Caviar 340 MB.)
>
> Try passing the geometry at the boot prompt:
>
> hda=1010,12,55
>
> The "help" on the boot floppy is wrong, you can't say "hd=..."; you must
> say hda, hdb, or whatever.
>
> We intsalled on a Tandy machine the other dau that refused to work at
> all unless we passed the drive's geometry with "hda=..." and also
> specified "hdb=none"
>
> You should get the Bootprompt-HOWTO. It addresses many problems of this
> type.
>
In some cases, with older drive types and/or systems, you can cheat a bit
by enabling the system ROM shadow option in your CMOS. I really doubt
that this would work on a PS/2, but my older AMD 386DX/40 (a truly super
system) with dual seagate 40meg MFM drives (yeah!) didn't like to boot
linux without having the main bios shadowed. If it was unshadowed, it
wouldn't autodetect the drive geometry. Kinda weird, but it's a kinda
weird box, right? Anyways. Neat trick nonetheless. :)
PS: Sorry for any incoherency. I'm recovering from a nasty tonsilitis
and am all drugged up on antibiotics & stuff. Heh.
--
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| ian eure, network admin, freelance security consultant, and |
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