Driver disk questions

Jay Cliburn jacliburn at bellsouth.net
Tue Aug 8 13:49:51 UTC 2006


Paul Howarth wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-08-07 at 22:21 -0500, Jay Cliburn wrote:
>> Jay Cliburn wrote:
>>> On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 08:38:28AM +0100, Paul Howarth wrote:
>>>> However, it is possible to manually load the driver if all you have is
>>>> the .ko file. See for example:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.keffective.com/mvsata/
>>> Thanks for this.  I ran across it early in my information search, but I 
>>> didn't realize its significance until just now with your comment.  I'll 
>>> try this method this evening when I get home.
>> The method in the referenced link works, at least for me.  I had to copy 
>> libata.ko and sata_via.ko to a floppy, then follow the procedure in the 
>> link and modprobe libata and sata_via from the floppy.  This enabled the 
>> kernel to see my sata drive long enough to install FC5.  (Also tried it 
>> with FC6T2 and it worked.)
>>
>> Unfortunately, on the reboot following installation I encountered a 
>> kernel panic very early on when /dev/VolGroup00 couldn't be found.  This 
>> happened for both FC5 and FC6T2.
> 
> I think that the reason for this is that the updated module has not
> actually been installed on the target system (this issue would not have
> happened with a "real" driver disk btw). So the initrd used to boot the
> system was made with the original modules, which don't work with your
> hardware. You may be able to fix this by booting the rescue CD using
> your custom module, copying your custom module on to the target system
> in place of the original module, then rebuilding the initrd.

1.  Booted linux-rescue
2.  modprobed libata and sata_via from floppy to recognize sata drive
3.  chroot /mnt/sysimage
4.  Copied libata.ko and sata_via.ko from floppy to /lib/modules/...
5.  Added "alias scsi_hostadapter sata_via" to modprobe.conf
6.  Executed the following in /boot
mkinitrd --preload=libata initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img 2.6.15-1.2054_FC5
7.  Rebooted.

System now boots from HDD.

Thanks for your help.




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