Guest robstitt Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 I have been trying to get Mandrake Linux 9 to install on a P II-350 MHz system (>300 MB mem) on an ASUS P2B motherboard (IDE CD-ROM & hard drive). I get somewhat unpredictable behavior (i.e., the hang/loop doesn't occur in the same place each time), but it alway seems to hang somewhere (the farthest I've gotten is to the "Select Language" screen). I get messages like: hdc: time out waiting for DMA ide_dmaproc: chipset supported ide_dma_timeout force only: 14 hdc: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy } hdc: drive note ready for command hdc: ATAPI reset complete hdc: irq timeout: status=0xc0 { Busy } end_request: I/O error, dev 16:00 (hdc), sector ______ Once they starte, these messages loop over & over. I was able to get my old Mandrake Linux 7.2 CD to boot without issue, sucessfully getting all the way to the "format drives" screen. I also was able to get farther with the 9.0 disk on another system. The problem seems to be some sort of issue between my hardware and the 9.0 verson of Linux. Any help would surely be appreciated. Thanks, ...Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 I know this sounds stupid since you've used Mandrake before but... Have you checked the Mandrake 9 disk md5sums? Are the cdrom and hard drive on the same cable? I had a problem with them, had to put each on a separate chanel. Can you change the cdrom out to see if its just not a buggy cdrom? Could be a mem chip issue also. Can you switch out the chips? Do you have plug and pray turned off? Just grasping for ideas here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 If you are saying that the disks have never completed on any computer, then I would suspect the disks. I am also unclear about the 7.2 disks. Have you never completed an installation on this computer? A delay that you are describing, as long as the disks can be ruled out, could be caused by a problem in the cpu or the chipset. But, I think more infornation would be helpful. Did you download Mandrake? Any other os running on this computer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest robstitt Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 As I said, the CD seems to work fine when I boot it on a different box. I put the CD in my other box (P4 2.4GHz) and it got all the way to the point where it wanted to start formating drives (and I didn't really want to do that on my P4 system, so I elected to quit). On my PII system, often times it doesn't get the initial load complete--and the farthest it has made it was to the "Language" question. The problem seems to be the combination of the hardware with Mandrake 9 (the "9" CD works elsewhere AND the "7.2" CD works on the box that causes the problem with the "9" version). Something seems to be making it go nuts trying to access the CD. By the way, I've got my hard drive as "master" on the first IDE chain and my CD is "master" on the second one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest robstitt Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 As for other OSs, it IS successfully running Mandrake Linux 7.2 (from a drive that was installed using another motherboard, however). BUT, I was able to get the Linux 7.2 Install CD to work--all the way to the point of wanting to format the partitions (when I elected to quit). The CDs came from the ISO images on the web site, but (as noted in my previous reply) they DO seem to work fine on my other system--at least they got significantly farther on that box before I chose to bail out because I don't want to wipe out my current OS over there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 12, 2002 Report Share Posted December 12, 2002 Ruling out cd issues, the next step I would take with your particular board is to open up the case and re-seat the cpu. Slot 1 boards were notorious for having the cpu slide, which causes strange problems. Even with the locking device, the cpu's would slip out of the slot. Try that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest robstitt Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 That seems extremely unlikely. The system was running WinNT prior to my swapping the hard drive for my Linux system and it runs the older (7.2) Mandrake Linux flawlessly. Any CPU seating issues would likely show up in those environments as well. Are there any ways to change the way Linux goes about reading from the CD-ROM drive (i.e., not use DMA)?? I'm leaning towars some sort of issue with the Mandrake 9 and the CD-ROM drive...the problem certainly seems isolated to an issue between Mandrake 9 and my particular system. The drive is some sort of fairly generic 50x CD-ROM drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 You know, there was some discussion about dma, udma and maxtor drives with Mandrake 9. Two things to do: Turn off dma in the bios for the drive or At the boot screen, press F1 and type linux ide=nodma Some others found they could perform the install and turn dma back on later. It's a really odd problem, as I have two maxtor drives and have had no problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 I would open your case and check to see if everything is seated properly. I had a similar problem with another os on a friends computer. Turns out that the IDE cable wasn't seated properly. If you rule that out as a cause of the problem, do you have another cd drive that you could swap into that box and try that? Perhaps the problem lies with the drive. Saying that you had NT on that box previous to the attempt at installing mandrake just means that the hardware worked previously, it doesn't rule out the possibility of the cpu slipping, or one of the cables getting loose. Open up the case and see if something is loose; it's at least a place to start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest robstitt Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 I may try to "borrow" another drive or change the cabling a bit, but either of those problems should manifest themselves when I try to install Linux 7.2, shouldn't they?? My next shot, however, will be to look at the "nodma" options (thanks for pointing them out, as I was looking for something like that and didn't find it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 you are right, they should, but you never know. I didn't know about the nodma option either. Give that a try and see if it works out for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest robstitt Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 Well, I tried most of those things (and others)...no luck. The "ide=nodma" didn't help; changing the IDE DMA settings in the BIOS didn't work; swapping the primary/secondary IDE cables didn't work; a new IDE cable for the CDROM didn't work; tweaking a few other BIOS settings didn't work... Every once in a while, I get to the "select a language" screen. Without fail, it hangs there. I found that by ejecting/reinserting the CD, it would resume. Once, I got to the "format the hard drive" screen (I said "erase everything") and it hung hard there. Is there something ugly about the "Uniform CD ROM driver Revision 3.12"?? Can I install using some other CD-ROM driver?? Also, I noticed that the system (the BIOS) calls my drive a "50x" drive (which it is), but Linux calls it a "48x"... I still haven't tried a new CD, as that requires surgery on another system...I kinda hate to mess with a working system to fix what appears to be some sort of software/driver bug... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 have you tried rewriting anouther cdrom disc? maybe this disc is a little buggy. I know I've had a disc or two turn out unreadable in an old drive and still work in a newer drive. Then again it could just be a big dust ball in the cdrom drive!!! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 Also, I've read somewhere that the quality of the media that you are trying to use might not be readable by older drives. A re-burn might fix your problems there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 13, 2002 Report Share Posted December 13, 2002 If the various ide dma changes had no effect, particularly with the bios, then it cannot be the issue. If the impossible is the only choice, then the impossible is the answer. It's a bad disk; reburn the cd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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