Linux Will NOT install on a promise card. Help needed ASAP!

[ProMicrosot]

Ok, I have a very serious problem. I can ONLY install linux Mandrake 7.1 on my machine, as it is the ONLY distro that will automatically identify and work with a Promise/66 controller card! I have tried them all to no avail, Redhat 6.2, Redhat 7.0, Mandrake 7.2, WinLinux, StormLinux, and they ALL failed to pick up the promise card. Here is what happens typically with Redhat 7.0 and Mandrake 7.2:
-Finds hard drives and their memory addresses
-Finds IRQs of hard drives-
-LOCK UP COMPLETETLY RIGHT AFTER DETECTING HARD DRIVES.

The only way I was able to start the installation process was to move the cable to the motherboard, but even if I do that, as soon as I hook it back up to the promise/66 card, I get kernel panics like "unable to mount root fs on device...", or even worse: that lockup problem I just described!
Somebody PLEASE help! I have toured through many forums, man pages, and support sites, but NONE of the tricks they suggested works! I even sent "Mandrake Experts" the following so that they may help me, but none of them replied:

For some reason, Linux mandrake 7.1
installed on my hard drive (which runs
on a PCI Promise Ultra/66 controller
card) with no problems whatsoever!
However, when booting from a floppy disk

to install mandrake 7.2,
the install hangs right after detecting

my hard drive, and an IRQ:13
setting! Please help! I have
toured through tons of man pages and
forums to no avail!
Here is my current config (in case it
may help):
motherboard: Pentium Pro dual proc.
Micronics W6-LI
RAM: 256 MB
controller card: Promise Inc. Ultra 66
PCI.
Hard drive (s): Quantum Fireball 30.0 GB

7200 rpm ultra 66
and Quantum Firball 13.0GB 5400 rpm
ultra 66 (mandrake is to be installed
on the 30 gb drive on 3 dedicated
linux-native partitions, and one linux
swap partition).
I will be glad to provide more
information (if necessary).


If someone knows what I can do BESDIES install mandrake 7.1 and mess with the kernel, please do help. I do NOT know how to re-construct (re-compile) the kernel, so please don't reply suggesting that as I am a total linux dummy, and even that "terminology" is hard for me to understand. Again, someone please help!

[drmbb]

Well, first thing, I don't think your problem lies with Mandrake 7.2 per se. I have 7.2 running on a Promise card (3 drives) without a single hitch, and I know other people who can claim the same.

Did you check the NHF here or the UDMA HOWTO (www.linux.org)? While Mandrake 7.2, RedHat 7, SuSe, should all auto-detect it, you could try the old method of passing boot parameters to the Kernel at startup.

I still think the problem must be some other hardware conflict though - you do have plug'n'play turned OFF in the BIOS?

[bdl]

You can install ANY linux distro on that card and I can give you a couple of tips.

<!--disclaimer: I am not responsible for any data loss or otherwise that occurs to your system. Have a nice day -->

You'll have to pass arguments to the kernel at the start of the linux install process. Whatcha want to do is find out the exact i/o address and irq that that particular controller uses. You'll need to either have a functional running distro installed or grab the ata100 boot disk and a color.gz root disk from ftp.slackware.com (BTW, you can just install slackware with this disk and your hardware will be automagically detected, I'd highly recommend it - grab the slack-current tree). Once the system is up and booted properly with either one of these methods, you'll drop to the cli and type:

linuxprompt# cat /proc/pci | more

...which will give you a nice listing of the devices on your system. we're only interested in the Promise section, which should look something like this:

...cut

Bus 0, device 11, function 0:
Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology Unknown device (rev 1).
Vendor id=105a. Device id=4d38.
Medium devsel. IRQ 11. Master Capable. Latency=32.
I/O at 0xb400 [0xb401].
I/O at 0xb800 [0xb801].
...cut

See the first two i/o listings? These are part of the arguments you'll use upon boot. Leave the first value alone, and add 2 (in hex) to the second value like so:

0xb400,0xb802

So this controller's main channel is

io / io / irq
0xb400,0xb802,11

These are the values you want to use on boot. If you have your mainboard's IDE channels enabled, this controller is IDE2 and /dev/hde.If not, it becomes IDE0 and /dev/hda. Get it? So then the mantra is

append="ide2=0xb400,0xb802,11"

...and this is the argument you give to the kernel at boot time. You can also add this to your lilo.conf and never have to type it in again. Occasionally the irq may change "on-the-fly" so to speak, and so you may have to do some troubleshooting, eg. leave the irq off altogether, or just do the 'cat /proc/pci' again to determine what the irq has changed to.
You can use the above listed method on pretty much any distro and it should work perfectly. Please bear in mind the above listed io and irq is my own, yours may vary. You'll have to use the same method for the second channel (IDE3) if you have a master/slave hdd on that channel as well. Good luck and let us know how it went. ;)

[ProMicrosot]

I looked through NHFs, and forums, and min-how tos and all that and none of the tricks they suggested work. As for passing parameters to the kernel at boot time, I trtied that too to no avail. All the info I read said that memory addresses look like: 0x8000 or 0x9400 etc.., well MY memory addresses on the udma/66 card were something like 0xf098 and 0xfoc2, etc...
I tried passing parameters to the kernel like:
linux ide2=0xfo98 ide3=0xfoc2
and that STILL does not work! This did not work with Redhat 7, Redhat 6.2, and Mandrake 7.2. I am clueless as to why this happens. Linux Mandrake 7.1 picks up the card with no problems whatsoever, and without me passing any parameters to the kernel at all!
I even tried Mandrake 8.0 RC1 and it has the same exact problem.
Oh, by the way, Plug and play is turned ON in my BIOS. My BIOS is very primitive, so I can't do much with it, and it does not support booting from a CD. If this may help, its PheonixBios v. 4.05 running on a Micronics w6-Li Pentium Pro motherboard!
I also tried flashing the BIOS to update it, and I have the latest version of the BIOS that was flashed!
if someone may know of a distro that can releive me of all this pain and headaches, please let me know. As I said before, I am a total Linux newbie (dummy). I was told that Mandrake is the best distro for beginners while Redhat was the best for serious linux fans.
Someone Please help!
:-)

[ProMicrosot]

Here is What Windows 2000 reports my I/O addresses for the Promise/66 card. note: I think Linux would report similar if not identical resuts in /proc/pci
null http://www.geocities.com/shassouneh/promise.jpg

[MXR4LIFE]

If the I/O 's show

0xfo98
0xfoc2

Then then your line should read;
append="ide2=0xfo98,0xfoc4" NO SPACES!

This works on my A7V w/Promise and Mandy 7.2

But I don't recall any trouble with my Ultra66 controller on an older setup. Remember add 2 to the second I/O in LILO

also see
http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/hardware/hbits5.html

[jbstew32]

ignoring everything you said :) :

I have the same card with my 7200RPM HD. I took me a while to get it working...actually the driver they have with it is a POS! All you have to do is download the 2.4.x kernel and compile support for card. My 2.4 kernel automagically recognizes it now...its works great. I didnt add anything to my lilo.conf or anything.

I have used it with Slack 7.1, Red Hat 7, Mandrake 7 & 7.1, Debian 2.2, etc...

that seems to be the easiest way to get it working

[jbstew32]

if u just want to install a distro onto a drive connected to that card, then all you need is a special boot image on a floppy. It will either be on the install CD or on the FTP site of the distro