Help installing linux with ide expansion card

[hnugz]

I bought a new pc, e6400 with gigabyte ds3 board which only has 1 ide slot.  I have 2hdds on the ide slot, and 2 cd-roms on an ide expansion card.  I tried installing fedora 5 but I got an installation error message at boot (it referred me to some website about installing, i forget the exact error).  I also downloaded virtual pc and tried to install it from an iso and from the cd roms in windows.  Still no go.

The furthest ive gotten is when installing from the iso, i get the install boot screen, hit enter, but then it just stops during the initial tests.

Is it even possible to install if the cdrom is on an ide expansion card?

[hm_murdock]

Yes... provided that Linux supports your card.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

can't you use a better configuration ? You might wanna try knoppix as it has the most sophisticated hardware detection of any distro, if it won't work nothing will (usually)

[Pathos]

I also downloaded virtual pc and tried to install it from an iso and from the cd roms in windows.  Still no go.

your hardware won't have anything to do with this since vpc emulates very generic hardware.

[hnugz]

Well I tried removing the ide card altogether to install.  I can now start the installation through virtual pc but it keeps stopping at the same place when beginning the installation.  I get an error about a soft lockup, specifically the line:

BUG: soft lockup detected on CPU#0!

which is followed by a bunch of stuff I don't really understand.  It just stops at that point.  This is with Fedora.

With Knoppix it goes to the penguin when starting the hdd install but then just sits at that point as well.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

right but can you boot knoppix as a live cd ?

[hnugz]

right but can you boot knoppix as a live cd ?

Hmm actually no I can't.  I tried the live knoppix 3.9 cd I have, it started ok with the scanning usb systems, but then I get the error, "Unable to locate linux file system" or something like that.  Then it dropped me into a limited shell.

Any ideas why?

[H_TeXMeX_H]

You should probably go through step by step and fix errors as they come up. Being precise about exactly what error you got is very important. Usually you can google the error and find a solution.

I don't think it's possible to not find a linux file system when there isn't one. Perhaps it was looking for a swap partition ? Anyway, looks like it can't find the HDD ? Pls post exactly what is says (and if it indeed said "Unable to locate linux file system" then do not add "or something like that." if you are sure)

[hnugz]

You should probably go through step by step and fix errors as they come up. Being precise about exactly what error you got is very important. Usually you can google the error and find a solution.

I don't think it's possible to not find a linux file system when there isn't one. Perhaps it was looking for a swap partition ? Anyway, looks like it can't find the HDD ? Pls post exactly what is says (and if it indeed said "Unable to locate linux file system" then do not add "or something like that." if you are sure)

Yeah sorry I was at work when I wrote that, I know it doesn't help.

I get a screen that looks like this when booting off of the cd:
http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/5968/knoppix28zv.png

I looked around google and some places said it might be because of dma being enabled, I tried knoppix nodma with the same results.  Other places said it was due to the cdrom not being on an ide drive.  I have the cdrom set as slave with the hard drive set as master on the only ide slot available.

[mobrien_12]

I used to see that when I didn't use nodma on one of my computers when booting to knoppix.

One might wonder if the DVD is borked, but then you said you had the same problem with RedHat... did you burn both?  Is it possible your burns are bad?  Do they boot on another PC?

[hnugz]

I used to see that when I didn't use nodma on one of my computers when booting to knoppix.

One might wonder if the DVD is borked, but then you said you had the same problem with RedHat... did you burn both?  Is it possible your burns are bad?  Do they boot on another PC?

I tried a fedora dvd, fedora cds, the knoppix dvd, and the knoppix 3.9 cd.  I am having issues with the dvds but the cds do work in my other pc so I know it should install.

[hnugz]

Just as an added note, I tried running the 3.9 cd using virtual pc and I get the following errors:

Audit(1158009232.547:0): initialized
isapnp:checksum for device 1 is not valid (0x89)
isapnp:checksum for device 2 is not valid (0xbe)

Could this be an issue with the core 2 duo e6400?


*Edit - I was able to run the live 3,9 knoppix cd using vmware.  Weird that it won't work just trying to boot.  Anyway that gives me more things to play around with.  Thanks.

[mobrien_12]

Just as an experiment, you might try disabling   DMA on the  IDE channels in the BIOS  before booting to Knoppix.

[Orethrius]

The only thing I can think of is that the discs were burned as "Data" rather than "From Image".  Sorry.  

[Master of Reality]

The only thing I can think of is that the discs were burned as "Data" rather than "From Image".  Sorry.  

that wouldnt be it because it boots the first bit, and then drops to a shell (which would have to be from the CD)

....not that i can be of any help to the actual problem.