upgrade trouble

[mseedii]

I'm trying to upgrade a system (Pentium III 600EB) (256meg) ram (18G SCSI hd) that is running open server enterprise 5.0.5. to 5.0.7. when i start with the floppy it hangs at wdinit. i've tried the following bootstring

defbootstr wd.noscan Sdsk=alad(0,0,0,0)
as well as
defbootstr Sdsk=alad(0,0,0,0) wd.noscan

if i use

defbootstr Sdsk=alad(0,0,0,0) disable=wd

i can get to start the upgrade but obviously the install media is unavailable

any suggestions??

 

[Hemo]

Have to make the assumtion the CD drive is IDE here... Where on the IDE chain is it? Anything else on IDE chain?

Sometimes I've had to put the CD drive on primary controller as a slave and leave the master empty.

OTH, an external scsi cd drive comes in handy as well.

 

[mseedii]

it is on the second ide as a master with no primary ide master or slave

 

[Hemo]

Try it on primary master?

How long does it actually hang on wdinit? Have you waited at least 5 minutes? I can't remember the actual times, but I do remember something with IDE timeouts if something wasn't just so.
That was on 5.0.2, but I'm just thinking aloud.

I'm reading over on pcunix.com about a problem with a laptop and 5.0.5, might not apply, but if you are game to try it:

We tried a wide number of boostring parameters, but unsuccesfully.
We were able to solve it by acting as follows; just a few seconds
before the "hwconfig" screen was depicted (while a bunch of dots were
shown on the screen), we inserted the OS CD in the driver, we did close
the slot and we let it spin during the hardware recognition. Thus making,
the system was able to recognize the adapter and the installation device
(EIDE/ATAPI CD-ROM, Primary/Slave) and was able to complete the installation
succesfully.

We were able to replicate it; in fact, if the CD reader was empty during
the installation phase, the system was unable to detect it. If the CD-ROM
was inserted but "inactive" (ie, not spinning), the same; we were able
to complete the installation only by letting the CD spin during the HW
recognition screen.

The strange think was that, once installed and rebooted, the system was able
to correctly see the CD even if the slot was empty (ie, no CD in drive). Only
the installation procedure failed to recognize it.

Or bootstring 'defbootstr hd=Sdsk' ?

I hope I'm not tossing out a wild goose chase, just trying to think of things I've had to try in the past.

 

[mseedii]

thanks for the suggestions. switching to the primary ide worked