rh 7.0- no valid devices...

[theAaronDome]

my comp now has 2 hds. one is running ME, the other is going to run rh 7.0.

i took the old windows hd, erased the windows partition, added a linux partition. from there i boot up with my rh 7.0 CD, ill select mouse, keyboard, etc. from there i select workstation installation, and i get an error that reads as "no valid devices were found on which to create new filesystems."

basically from there im just lost. maybe it doesnt like my filesystem, or maybe it just doesnt see my hd at all. any suggestions would be appreciated.
aaron.

[ 08 July 2001: Message edited by: theAaronDome ]

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

Did you partition your drive as a linux filesystem before installing linux? That's generally unneccesary, as the linux installation is capable of correctly formatting the drive the way it needs it all by itself (in my experience anyway, maybe some distro's dont...).

Anyway, I suggest formatting the drive you want to install linux on as fat32, and allowing it to format it the way it wants.

[theAaronDome]

my first attempt was to install over the fat 32 partition, then i went for just erasing the fat 32 partition, then once agian as a linux partition.

during the boot sequence, i have noticed this line. hda/b no response (status = 0xa1)

while that doesnt looking promising, im not too sure of the normal boot sequence.

[ 08 July 2001: Message edited by: theAaronDome ]

[rockyrider2]

make sure that the jumpers on the hd are set correctly...
master and slave...
check your bios settings
make a boot disk in windows for linux.
and try booting from the floppy

[theAaronDome]

both hd work in ME, so im sure the jumpers, etc. are all good to go.

linux just doesnt want to install on the slave.

[bdg1983]

It can't find your HD's. Are you using a ATA100 controller as that is usually what the problem is?

If so, then there are ways to get it to work. One is to search the forums for ATA100 or read the NHF on Ultra66 which works for the 100.

Just in case this is the problem and you don't want to upgrade to a newer distro that supports ATA100 out of the box, try the following.

All I had to do was give extra command line arguments to the kernel at boot time. To figure out the command line arguments, but with a linux boot/rescue floppy. When you reach the command prompt, do a
cat /proc/pci

You should see something like this in the output produced by this command, in addition to other junk.

Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology Unknown device (rev 1). Vendor id=105a. Device id=4d38.
Medium devsel. IRQ 5. Master Capable. Latency=64.
I/O at 0x1400 [0x1401].
I/O at 0x10f4 [0x10f5].
I/O at 0x10f8 [0x10f9].
I/O at 0x10f0 [0x10f1].
I/O at 0x1080 [0x1081].

Now Note down the values on those lines beginning with I/O, call them a, b, c, d (which in my case are 0x1400, 0x10f4, 0x10f8, 0x10f0). Ignore "e" (0x1080).

Then give the following command line argument to your kernel on the "lilo" prompt.

lilo: linux ide2=a,b+2 ide3=c,d+2

Which in my case is:
lilo: linux ide2=0x1400,0x10f6 ide3=0x10f8,0x10f2

You should see the drive through linux after that. To avoid having to type that command line arguments to kernel everytime, you can configure lilo to automatically do this for you. Just consult lilo doc about "append" option.


Post back if still problems.

[theAaronDome]

while i cant seem to follow the nhf, that is the problem. i am using a ata100 controller.

if i boot off the linux boot disk, i go straight to a upgrade/install, expert, rescue, driver menu, choosing one of those options i boot up the CD and eventually start installing Linux. i never hit a command prompt, and further how would i make it to a lilo prompt before having it installed?
thanks, aaron.

[bdg1983]

CTRL-ALT-F1 should get you to a terminal where you can do the cat /proc/pci and then switch back to the install, CTRL-ALT-F7 or F8.

The install should stop long enough at a prompt where you can type in the ide2=

You should see lilo:

where you would then type

linux ide2=a,b+2 ide3=c,d+2

Now on mine before, I never used the b+2 and d+2, but only ide2=a,b ide3=c,d

At least I seem to remember not doing the adding. Try one way and if it doesn't work, try the other.