No disk controller found

[SteveS815]

I have just installed OpenServer 5.0.6 on a brand new HP NetServer E-800. This is a standard "off the shelf" server, (No RAID) one disk, one floppy, one DAT tape drive. I added a Digi Xem serial IO controller, PCI slot 2. Because the SCSI controller is Symbios, I had to add the SLHA driver via BTLD. Load was successful. Server was up and running for 2 days, I made several modifications, relinked the kernel 2 or 3 times, and installed my application. Then....

Intermittently I get this message at boot time, after everything is posted right after tape drive is posted.
WARNING: hd: no root disk controller was found
hd: a Boot-Time loadable device driver may be required
H iinit
PANIC: srmountfun - Error 19 mounting rootdev (1/42)
Error 19 opening dumpdev (1/41)
dump not completed

The machine then halts with "Safe to power off....." message.

I have attempted to reinstall the BTLD by entering the string at the boot prompt
restart link=slha Sdisk=shla(0,0,0,0) Srom=wd(1,0,0,0) scsi.noscan
The system responds "restart not found"


Any clues would be appreciated...

Thanks

 

[pcunix]

Since it's intermittent, my guess is that you don't have good cables or good active termination. See

http://stage.caldera.com/cgi-bin/ssl_reference?104715

Tony Lawrence
SCO Unix/Linux Resources

http://pcunix.com

tony@pcunix.com

 

[SteveS815]

Thanks for your input Tony. What I have done so far:
Disconnect tape drive from SCSI cable. This allowed the machine to boot.
Removed the tape device (mkdev tape) and relink the kernel. Machine booted OK.
ReConnect tape to SCSI cable, again boot OK.
Add the tape device (mkdev) and relink kernel, again Boot OK.
Tape is last device on cable and cable is HP factory terminated.
tested tape drive with cpio -o and -i, works fine.
Possibly tape drive was not securely attached to cable? or tape configuration not correctly linked in previous kernel? Further problems would indicate faulty cable IMHO.
Thanks again.

 

[pcunix]

Factory termination is NOT good termination. Your initial problem may indeed have been a loose cable, but you still do not have a good setup.

See

http://pcunix.com/Unixart/scsi.html

and read the section on termination. Don't put your data at risk to save a few dollars by not doing it right. Tony Lawrence
SCO Unix/Linux Resources

http://pcunix.com

tony@pcunix.com