Guest DST Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 Hi I'm trying to join the community by installing MDK 10 on our old server : Dell Poweredge 4350 Server Twin P3 550 Adaptec SCSI with 2 x SCSI HDDs and NEC 466 SCSI CDROM RAID (Perc) I've got the 3 CDs. CD1 is recognised as a bootable disc and the Mandrake installation process starts - no problem, until it can't find the CDROM and suggests putting a floppy in for drivers. I've seen a few references to this type of problem but no clear solution for a novice. I've read that 9.1 or 9.2 may be better. Is this a simple driver problem and if so can I get drivers from somewhere or should I try 9.2. If so, is it still available for download anywhere ? Many thanks in advance. DST Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 How far into the installation does it get? Do you get to the screen that says "Press Enter or press F1 for more options"? If so, Press F1 and type 'linux expert' (no quotes) and press enter. See if that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 i suggest, check your cd's, maybe they are a bad burn. i also once had a set of cd's which seemed to work okay until the comp tried to install packages and told me that the cd-rom could not be found. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DST Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 Thanks for both very quick replies. I tried two Disc 1s - one with an Imation CD-R at 32x and a TDK CDRW at 4x with the same result. I pressed Enter at the install option as I wouldn't really know what to do by F1, linux expert, but I'll try it tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 Thanks for both very quick replies. I tried two Disc 1s - one with an Imation CD-R at 32x and a TDK CDRW at 4x with the same result. I pressed Enter at the install option as I wouldn't really know what to do by F1, linux expert, but I'll try it tomorrow. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It will start the installer as normal, but it gives you more options and does more probing for hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DST Posted July 26, 2004 Report Share Posted July 26, 2004 Tried as linux expert and it basically did the same. The actual message is "CDROM not found" followed by a prompt for a floppy and "Which driver should be used to gain access to the SCSI" or something very similar. I also managed to create a boot floppy but still only got to the same point in the installation. Not sure if SCSI is not being found or the CDROM itself. [Not sure if it makes a difference but the Dell BIOS does not have a boot option for the CD, however as it goes through the SCSI BIOS it detects a bootable disc in the CDROM and then I get the Mandrake set up screen as expected.] Also, the system currently has a copy of Win 2K server and if I let that boot it happily communicates with the CD. Now considering setting up the system from the hard disk but I will have to partition and then copy over. IF there is anything anyone else can suggest before this, I'd be grateful. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted July 27, 2004 Report Share Posted July 27, 2004 No real solution here but I was thinking it might be something to do with the SCSI system. It soounds like linux is not communicating with the drive the right way. It stops at the point it requests data from the cdrom. If you could possibly switch it to an IDE cd drive you might be able to install that way then switch back. Or you can do a hard disk install. Basicly use the hard disk file like the cd drive. The instructions are someplace on this forum. I've never had to do one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest doorman007 Posted July 30, 2004 Report Share Posted July 30, 2004 hey there go to /images directory on your first (boot) cdrom, open README and under the heading "old scsi adapters" all will be made clear :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DST Posted August 6, 2004 Report Share Posted August 6, 2004 Thanks doorman007 very much - I have located the readme and so I think that points me to the drivers. However the process describes making floppies with with Linux commands mke2fs for example and refers to a lib/modules/,kernel-version....... etc which I am supposing is only there when you have some of the OS installed - or is it available from the command line before install ? (Sorry if that sounds confused). Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DST Posted August 8, 2004 Report Share Posted August 8, 2004 I think doorman007 is correct referring to the readme and the section on old drivers because I managed to get a copy of 9.2 and it installed itself without failing to find the CDROM as version 10 did. So there must have been some drivers in 9.2 which were relegated in 10. If I am only going to use Mandrake to run Samba as a File Server for a relatively small network is it really worth trying to get 10 going or is 9.2 good enough ? Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted August 9, 2004 Report Share Posted August 9, 2004 9.2 is good enough to get going. Once the internet connection is up and running you can upgrade to 10. You don't need to though. You can just upgrade the packages you have to the latest for any security reasons and you'll be about 95% of 10. There are quite a few people out there still running OLD OLD mandrake systems just because they work great for what they are doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DST Posted August 9, 2004 Report Share Posted August 9, 2004 Thanks Pzatch I didn't ignore your previous suggestions - IDE CDROM & HDD install. I think the IDE would be tricky as there are no IDE slots on the mobo and so I'd need to install a card and then its possibly back to drivers. I have the HDD install prepared for version 10 but just need to to tweak my boot floppy to point to the correct hda. However, following you last reply and the fact that I've got 9.2 running with a bootloader that works perfectly, I will stick with that for now and do partial updates as you suggest. Many thanks to you and all you have helped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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