Xorg.conf + IDE snags in FC2

[Romain Kang]

I was previously running FC1 on a Shuttle SB61G2 (P4 2.8E, 865g/ICH5),
with an SGI 1600SW monitor (1600x1024) via Radeon 9200SE.  It runs
MythTV (with Hauppauge 401 card), so I decided to move to a larger
HDD.  I also wanted xfs for the video store; I had been using
reiserfs because it empirically appeared to cause less disk I/O
while recording than ext3.

I installed the new HDD in the internal rack.  Since there's no
space for another HDD inside, I rejumpered the old HDD as an IDE
slave and hooked it up on the same chain with the optical drive,
sitting on top of the works with the external cover off.  The
FC2 installer found both HDDs as well as the FC1 installation
on /dev/hdd.  I opted for a fresh install on the new /dev/hda.
So far, so good.

When I booted the new installation, it tried to bring up the firstboot
screen.  However, I had a bad Xorg.conf, so firstboot blew up.  I
retrieved the modeline from my old HDD and rebooted, coming back
with the normal X login screen instead of firstboot.  I had to kick
it a few times to get the right mode because the X root window was
misdimensioned as 1600x1050.  (My recollection was that FC1 brought
up a usable X11 config, minus the 1600x1024 mode, which I had to
install by hand).

To get firstboot to finish its business, I eventually discovered
that I had to "rm /etc/sysconfig/firstboot".  Fine.

When I brought back my home directory from the old HDD, I was missing
the sawfish window manager.  No problem, run metacity and go back
to the CDs.  Oops, there was no /dev/hdc anymore, only /dev/hda and
/dev/hdd.  The IDE probe correctly saw the optical drive (and the
installer wanted to upgrade the FC1 partition, for goodness' sake):

ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA

But nothing for hdc shows up under /proc/ide.  Curses.  Attempting
to mount /dev/hdc gets the infamous "not a valid block device"
error.  ide-scsi is deprecated, attempting to put "hdc=ide-cdrom"
into the kernel boot args does nothing.  After Googling and poking
at this for a while (and missing a MythTV recording scheduled
overnight) I decide to remove the old HDD.  Voila, /dev/hdc reappears
and I'm back in business:

hdc: SONY DVD RW DRU-510A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

OK, install sawfish and its prereqs.  The old HDD goes into a USB
2.0 enclosure.  Oops, have to rejumper it as IDE master in order
to make it visible.  Copying old videos to the new drive appears
to move about 13 MB/s.

Hope this account helps someone...

Romain Kang                             Disclaimer: I speak for myself alone,
romain at kzsu.stanford.edu                except when indicated otherwise.