kernal panic on install boot

[cdhgold]

i have a clone server with a hardware raid controller that i'm trying to load 9.2 on .. last time I tried it booted from cd and said it couldn't see drives due to raid .. now i'm back to it to get raid support setup and now it does not get that far boots from cd then gets kernal panic ... any ideas? btw it is a dual amd cpu box nothing has changed since last time and then it at least got to suse config screen to choose partition software etc.. any help is greatly appreciated. I have also used this same media in the same drive to successfully install on a different system.

thank you
chris

[Tux]

I believe you have to load the driver for the RAID controller from floppy, i'd advise checking the SUSE website.

[cdhgold]

how do i do that? why would it not get as far booting from cd as it did before?

[Tux]

If, as I think you are describing, you have used the _same_ install CD on the exact _same_ server hardware before and you did not experience the problem then it really does beat me.

Otherwise, i'd say the installer doesn't recognise your controller and when it comes to poll the hardware it falls down ungracefully. If this is the case, then I think the oversight by the German boffins is due to lack of space for controller drivers on the install media (or they are proprietary) and that is why they can be found on an alternative CD. I remember having similar problems with SUSE 9.1 and on-chip SATA sometime ago.

[cdhgold]

the media in question is a dual layer dvd so hopefully the driver is there have never loaded a driver during linux install before could use some pointers on how to do so.

thanks cdhgold

[Tux]

It's a case of inserting the disk and selecting an option in the GUI installer which loads the module.

If you can say which RAID controller and SUSE version you are using, I can help point you to the correct disk.
In any case it will either be available on the SUSE site, or the hardware manufacturer's site. The SUSE mailing list is a good place to pick up any tips in case there is any tricky issue with your particular hardware and software combination.

[cdhgold]

LSI logic mega express 500 and suse 9.2 ..part of problem is it does not boot far enough to get into the gui installer if it got that far i could handle it but dies before it

[Void Main]

Are there any error messages or does it just hang? It might be a case where a module is hanging and you could pass a kernel param so it doesn't load it. There are a few that I know of that can cause the kernel to hang. One that comes to mind is adding this to the boot line:

acpi=off

There are actually several options that could get around a hang. Knowing the last line(s) of output would certianly help me figure out what is hanging though.

[Tux]

OK, LSI do have a driver disk for SUSE but it is for SUSE 9.0

So it seems to are going to have to take the slightly convoluted step of getting a SUSE 9.0 ISO and burn this to disk.
Then install SUSE 9.0 and using the manufacturers floppy found here

Then, from the running SUSE 9.0 system add the SUSE 9.2 DVD as an installation source in YAST. Tell it to upgrade everything and sit back for a long while.
Unfortunately, these are the headaches proprietary drivers cause you...

[cdhgold]

tried it with acpi=off and this is what i got

[<c0104255>] kernel_thread_helper+0x5/0x10
Code: this followed by 2 lines of various hex characters
<0> Kernel panic - not synching attempted to kill init!

acpi is disabled in my bios. i get same error on a normal boot from the install disc

[Tux]

Yeh, try what void said first^^

[cdhgold]

I have 9.0 install media but would like to avoid that if i can. thanks for the link and suggestion will go that route if i have to.

Cdhgold

[Void Main]

tried it with acpi=off and this is what i got

[<c0104255>] kernel_thread_helper+0x5/0x10
Code: this followed by 2 lines of various hex characters
<0> Kernel panic - not synching attempted to kill init!

acpi is disabled in my bios. i get same error on a normal boot from the install disc

By any chance before the above messages does it say something like "unable to mount root filesystem"? Sounds like Tux is on the right track with the driver disks.

[cdhgold]

all right new twist in this saga .. this time when i booted it did NOT give the kernal panic did nothing different . it booted and asked for modules 2 disk where the lsi mega raid drivers are located .. i used rawwrite and created the image disk no problem .. went back to the install and loaded the drivers no problem .. but the damn thing still does not see the raid array .. AAUUGGHH

any other suggestions? thanks for the help so far

Cdhgold

[cdhgold]

Problem solved!! .. my original plan for this box was to have 5 different servers running at once via VMWARE (lan in a box) with suse 9.2 as the host OS so it could double as workstation ... since 9.2 does not seem to play nice wiht my raid i'm loading Novell OES Linux as the Host OS runs on Suse Enterprise Server 9 which being server Os picked the Raid up with no problems .. am gambling that the GSX version of vmware will be compatible with SLES9 .. if this works out as i plan when done it will be running Novell OES Linux , Novell OES NW6.5, Netware6.5, W2k and W2k3 and they all will play nice together ..

Thanks again,
Cdhgold