[rhelv6-list] Redhat 6 installation failures common

[Lamar Owen]

On Tuesday, April 05, 2011 10:09:55 AM D G Teed wrote:
> We have experienced multiple systems where the installer can launch
> and it is obviously reading from CDROM but then when it
> looks for the installation media it fails to find the CDROM.
[snip]
> We pick Local CD/DVD
> 
> then the error appears: "Disc Not Found".
[snip]
> On the same system, we were able to install RH 5 without a hitch
> and it will still boot up RH 5 fine.
> 
> The hardware is a basic Intel motherboard 1U server - nothing esoteric.

RHEL 6 uses a different set of drivers for certain IDE/ATA chips, and apparently certain chips aren't properly supported any more in recent kernels.  I'm thinking specifically of Intel 845 and 865 (I think; I'm sure of the 845), like used in Dell Dimension 4500S desktops.  Fedora 14, 13, and 12 won't install on them either; older (pre-all ATA uses libata) works fine.  Same error you see there.

The CD-ROM is initially booted as a BIOS device, but once control passes from the initramfs to anaconda the access to the device goes through other channels, and for some reason those chips have issues with the new ATA stack.  At least our Dell Dimension 4500S's have issues there; I wanted to use a Fedora liveCD to do a disk clone on one, and it would not boot at all; had to back up to an older version of SystemRescueCD (1.1.0; current is quite a bit more modern).  So, try a number of LiveCD's and work up to where it quits working (use Fedora LiveCD's for consistency); start at FC6 and work your way up, and find out where it quites working.

Need more info on your devices to help further.

Also, check with Red Hat and see if your hardware is supposed to be supported.