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Switch to PCI IDE controller - SOLVED


cptaylor
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I am trying to move my harddrive and cd drives from my on board ATA66 controller to a PCI ATA133 controller. I have been unable to get Linux to find anything on the new controller.

 

The controller is an ITE IT8212 Raid controller but I am not using raid. Mandrake 10.1ce is able to find to controller but not the drives on it.

 

I thought once the controller was found I could simply move the drives to the new controller. Lilo comes up ok but I get a kernel panic when trying to boot to linux. I had to put the hardrive back on the onboard controller to get back to linux.

 

Following the install instructions I have used 'modprobe iteraid' which also loads sr_mod, sd_mod and scsi_mod.

 

Dmesg shows the harddrive on the onboard controller and shows the raid controller but not the cdrom connected to it.

 

From what I have read here, I suspect I need to make some changes to lilo in order to boot to the harddrive when it is on the raid controller. I'm a bit confused, though. I have read that it will show up as sda or as md0, instead of hda. I would have expected it to still be hda. I tried changing lilo.conf to sda but get an error when running lilo since sda does not exist.

 

I also don't see anything in /dev/ for the cdrom that is connected to the new controller.

 

The solution probably isn't that complicated, but I can seem to figure it out. What should I be looking for? Are there any other modules that need to be loaded or configurations that need to be changed in order for linux to see the drives on the new controller?

 

I hate to say it but making the change in WinXP was extemely simple. Install the card, boot once so XP could install the drivers for the card, shutdown, move the drives, boot back up and everything comes up normally.

 

Thanks,

-Chris

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Get a bootable live cd like knoppix; your going to need it. When you put your drive on the pci controller, all the drive designations will change because linux identifies drives by where they are on the ide bus. I have a promise pci controller card. If I had a drive on the on board primary master it would be designated in linux as hda with its partitions being designated hdax where 'x' is a number. If I move it to my promise primary master, the drive will become hde. The problem is that everything in fstab still identifies the partitions to be mounted in terms of hda and lilo is looking for the mbr on hda which is no longer there.

Here's what you need to do. Post your current fstab and lilo.conf. Get knoppix. Put the drive on your new controller card and boot off the knoppix cd and see how the drive is designated in it's new position. Report back that info and we can tackle how to edit fstab and lilo.conf from within knoppix so everything jives with the drives new position on the ide bus.

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pmpatrick,

 

Thanks for pointing out that the drive should become hde. I'm still a bit of a noob but I should have thought of that.

 

I downloaded Knoppix as you suggested. It comes up fine but still does not find the hard drive on the PCI controller. I suspect it is missing the iteraid module. I didn't have any luck getting it to load in Knoppix.

 

I also tried moving the drive back to hda and making a duplicate boot image in lilo.conf that pointed to hde so I could shutdown and make the switch. Lilo baulked at this because at the time there is no hde. I couldn't find a way to force it to accept it. Seems like a catch-22. I can't boot to hde without telling lilo to look there and I can't tell lilo to look there until the drive is there. Is it possible to link /dev/hde5 to point to /dev/hda5 just to get lilo to work?

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Following the install instructions I have used 'modprobe iteraid' which also loads sr_mod, sd_mod and scsi_mod.

 

That would indicate that the drive should be designated as a scsi device, i.e. sda1, which I believe is the common way for drives to be detected in a raid array. I'm not familiar with your card, but I would question whether the card is capable of dealing with a drive that is not in a raid array, i.e. a single hard drive. Check your documentation for the card. On motherboards with built in raid controllers, I know you have to go into the bios setup and designate nonraid if you are going to use the ide port in a nonraid setting. Also, most pci controller cards do not like having optical drives connected to them; there strictly for hard drives. You sould leave the optical drive(s) on the onboard ide ports. Finally, knoppix boots with the 2.4 kernel by default. You might try booting with the 2.6 kernel by typing "knoppix26" at the boot prompt when knoppix first boots up.

Re your lilo problem, there are ways to hack around the problem using knoppix and the chroot environment with the drive in its new position but if knoppix isn't picking up the drive that won't be of any help.

Edited by pmpatrick
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Well I downloaded MandrakeMove and was finally able to see the hard drive on the PCI controller. :) Just had to load the iteraid module. The drive shows up sda.

So now that I can see the drive how do I modify lilo to boot to it and find the various partitions? I would like to just edit lilo.conf and run lilo. But, of course, since I've booted off the cd, lilo doesn't find the right files in the default locations. Reading the lilo man pages was a little bit overwhelming but it looks like there are options for running lilo and modifying a mbr other than the current boot drive.

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You have to edit fstab changing the /dev/hdx on the drive to /dev/sdax where applicable. Post your fstab if your not sure and back it up before editing. You have to edit lilo.conf, again changing the /dev/hdx or /dev/hdxx to /dev/sda or sdax.

Once this is done, open a console, su to root and run:

 

# chroot /dev/sdax

# /sbin/lilo -v

 

where sdax corresponds to your root partition.

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