Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters - openSUSE Users

Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters

roncordell＠attbi.com

8 May 2003 8 May '03

12:31

Hi all, I seem to have a problem with installing SuSE (or any Linux, for that matter) on a system with multiple SCSI adapters. I think the problem is how the system is configured, not with SuSE or Linux itself, so I was hoping someone could tell me what I might be doing wrong. M/B - Abit BE6-II 800Mhz P3 768MB Ram, onboard HPT366 IDE (disabled) SCSI Adapter #1 (in PCI slot #2) - Adaptec 2940UW, SCSI ID = 2 - CD R/W Drive, SCSI ID = 1 - DVD Drive, SCSI ID = 5 - Hard Drive #1, SCSI ID = 6 SCSI Adapter #2 (in PCI slot #4) - Adaptec 2940U2W, SCSI ID = 7 - Hard Drive #2, SCSI ID = 0 - Hard Drive #3, SCSI ID = 4 When I place the SuSE 8.2 DVD installation disk, I get the message on the boot screen (BIOS) that a bootable disk is in the DVD drive. The IsoLinux image boots (pretty SuSE 8.2 installation Welcome screen), and I see the progress bar load the image from the DVD. Then the screen goes black, with just a blinking cursor, and hangs there. I don't see any other information that helps me see what's going wrong. I have tried everything I can think of in BIOS settings, SCSI BIOS settings, etc. to make this work, but nothing seems to help. Everything has the latest BIOS updates. I've looked on the SuSE support db, and I don't see anything that resembles this problem. I've googled around and haven't found anything, and the folks on my local linux ug list don't seem to know anything. Does anyone out there have some insight that might be able to help me? Thanks, -ronc

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Ken Schneider

8 May 8 May

12:50

New subject: [SLE] Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters

On Thu, 2003-05-08 at 08:31, roncordell@attbi.com wrote:

...

Hi all,

I seem to have a problem with installing SuSE (or any Linux, for that matter) on a system with multiple SCSI adapters. I think the problem is how the system is configured, not with SuSE or Linux itself, so I was hoping someone could tell me what I might be doing wrong.

M/B - Abit BE6-II 800Mhz P3 768MB Ram, onboard HPT366 IDE (disabled) SCSI Adapter #1 (in PCI slot #2) - Adaptec 2940UW, SCSI ID = 2 - CD R/W Drive, SCSI ID = 1 - DVD Drive, SCSI ID = 5 - Hard Drive #1, SCSI ID = 6 SCSI Adapter #2 (in PCI slot #4) - Adaptec 2940U2W, SCSI ID = 7 - Hard Drive #2, SCSI ID = 0 - Hard Drive #3, SCSI ID = 4

First off, all controller cards should be set to ID 7. Most people don't know (or maybe this has changed) that ID 7 is given the highest priorty for access, with access priorties assigned downward, I.E. 6 next then 5 then 4 and so on. This is why adapter cards are set to ID 7 by default. SCSI ID's pertain only to the card itself and NOT across all cards installed so all of your cards can have ID 7 and you can have more than one device use an ID so long as they are not on the same card. Second, there have been a lot of emails on this list concerning this issue and you most likely need to use "safe mode" (acpi=off, apm=off) since the default of having these features turned on break a lot of installs. Ken Schneider

Peter B Van Campen

15:12

New subject: [SLE] Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters

Dear Ronc, The Adaptec 2940U2W can handle 15 connected SCSI devices plus itself, making 16 SCSI ids. Why do you need 2 SCSI controllers? You could put all the listed devices on one card and not even have to re-plug the SCSI ids. PeterB On Thursday 08 May 2003 07:31 am, roncordell@attbi.com wrote:

...

Hi all,

I seem to have a problem with installing SuSE (or any Linux, for that matter) on a system with multiple SCSI adapters. I think the problem is how the system is configured, not with SuSE or Linux itself, so I was hoping someone could tell me what I might be doing wrong.

M/B - Abit BE6-II 800Mhz P3 768MB Ram, onboard HPT366 IDE (disabled) SCSI Adapter #1 (in PCI slot #2) - Adaptec 2940UW, SCSI ID = 2 - CD R/W Drive, SCSI ID = 1 - DVD Drive, SCSI ID = 5 - Hard Drive #1, SCSI ID = 6 SCSI Adapter #2 (in PCI slot #4) - Adaptec 2940U2W, SCSI ID = 7 - Hard Drive #2, SCSI ID = 0 - Hard Drive #3, SCSI ID = 4

When I place the SuSE 8.2 DVD installation disk, I get the message on the boot screen (BIOS) that a bootable disk is in the DVD drive. The IsoLinux image boots (pretty SuSE 8.2 installation Welcome screen), and I see the progress bar load the image from the DVD. Then the screen goes black, with just a blinking cursor, and hangs there. I don't see any other information that helps me see what's going wrong.

I have tried everything I can think of in BIOS settings, SCSI BIOS settings, etc. to make this work, but nothing seems to help. Everything has the latest BIOS updates. I've looked on the SuSE support db, and I don't see anything that resembles this problem. I've googled around and haven't found anything, and the folks on my local linux ug list don't seem to know anything.

Does anyone out there have some insight that might be able to help me?

Thanks,

-ronc

Gerhard den Hollander

18:14

New subject: [SLE] Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters

* Peter B Van Campen (Thu, May 08, 2003 at 10:12:08AM -0500)

...

Dear Ronc,

The Adaptec 2940U2W can handle 15 connected SCSI devices plus itself, making 16 SCSI ids. Why do you need 2 SCSI controllers? You could put all the listed devices on one card and not even have to re-plug the SCSI ids.

Couple of reasons I can think of. If one of the devices is narrow, you can only have 7 devices on the chain, and the chainlength (including internal cabling) is limited to 3Meters. Also if you have one (or more) narrow devices, they will drag down the bus speed, in which case it makes a lot of sense to have 2 cards, one with the narrow disk and somce slower devices (tapedrives, cd, dvd &c) and use the other card for high performance devices. At least that are the reasons why Im consideing sticking a second scsi card in my machine ;)

...

PeterB On Thursday 08 May 2003 07:31 am, roncordell@attbi.com wrote:

...
Hi all,

I seem to have a problem with installing SuSE (or any Linux, for that matter) on a system with multiple SCSI adapters. I think the problem is how the system is configured, not with SuSE or Linux itself, so I was hoping someone could tell me what I might be doing wrong.

M/B - Abit BE6-II 800Mhz P3 768MB Ram, onboard HPT366 IDE (disabled) SCSI Adapter #1 (in PCI slot #2) - Adaptec 2940UW, SCSI ID = 2 - CD R/W Drive, SCSI ID = 1 - DVD Drive, SCSI ID = 5 - Hard Drive #1, SCSI ID = 6 SCSI Adapter #2 (in PCI slot #4) - Adaptec 2940U2W, SCSI ID = 7 - Hard Drive #2, SCSI ID = 0 - Hard Drive #3, SCSI ID = 4

When I place the SuSE 8.2 DVD installation disk, I get the message on the boot screen (BIOS) that a bootable disk is in the DVD drive. The IsoLinux image boots (pretty SuSE 8.2 installation Welcome screen), and I see the progress bar load the image from the DVD. Then the screen goes black, with just a blinking cursor, and hangs there. I don't see any other information that helps me see what's going wrong.

I have tried everything I can think of in BIOS settings, SCSI BIOS settings, etc. to make this work, but nothing seems to help. Everything has the latest BIOS updates. I've looked on the SuSE support db, and I don't see anything that resembles this problem. I've googled around and haven't found anything, and the folks on my local linux ug list don't seem to know anything.

Does anyone out there have some insight that might be able to help me?

Thanks,

Kind regards, -- Gerhard den Hollander Phone :+31-10.280.1515 Global IT Support manager Direct:+31-10.280.1539 Jason Geosystems BV Fax :+31-10.280.1511 (When calling please note: we are in GMT+1) gdenhollander@jasongeo.com POBox 1573 visit us at http://www.jasongeo.com 3000 BN Rotterdam JASON.......#1 in Reservoir Characterization The Netherlands This e-mail and any attachment is/are intended solely for the named addressee(s) and may contain information that is confidential and privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, we request that you do not disseminate, forward, distribute or copy this e-mail message. If you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify us immediately by telephone and destroy the original message.

Peter B Van Campen

20:48

New subject: [SLE] Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters

Dear Gerhard, I use a 68 pin to 50 pin adapter at times. Some SCSI cards have a 50 pin connector AND a 68 pin connector. PeterB On Thursday 08 May 2003 01:14 pm, you wrote:

...

* Peter B Van Campen (Thu, May 08, 2003 at 10:12:08AM -0500)

...
Dear Ronc,

The Adaptec 2940U2W can handle 15 connected SCSI devices plus itself, making 16 SCSI ids. Why do you need 2 SCSI controllers? You could put all the listed devices on one card and not even have to re-plug the SCSI ids.

Couple of reasons I can think of. If one of the devices is narrow, you can only have 7 devices on the chain, and the chainlength (including internal cabling) is limited to 3Meters.

Also if you have one (or more) narrow devices, they will drag down the bus speed, in which case it makes a lot of sense to have 2 cards, one with the narrow disk and somce slower devices (tapedrives, cd, dvd &c) and use the other card for high performance devices.

At least that are the reasons why Im consideing sticking a second scsi card in my machine ;)

...
PeterB

On Thursday 08 May 2003 07:31 am, roncordell@attbi.com wrote:

...
Hi all,

I seem to have a problem with installing SuSE (or any Linux, for that matter) on a system with multiple SCSI adapters. I think the problem is how the system is configured, not with SuSE or Linux itself, so I was hoping someone could tell me what I might be doing wrong.

M/B - Abit BE6-II 800Mhz P3 768MB Ram, onboard HPT366 IDE (disabled) SCSI Adapter #1 (in PCI slot #2) - Adaptec 2940UW, SCSI ID = 2 - CD R/W Drive, SCSI ID = 1 - DVD Drive, SCSI ID = 5 - Hard Drive #1, SCSI ID = 6 SCSI Adapter #2 (in PCI slot #4) - Adaptec 2940U2W, SCSI ID = 7 - Hard Drive #2, SCSI ID = 0 - Hard Drive #3, SCSI ID = 4

When I place the SuSE 8.2 DVD installation disk, I get the message on the boot screen (BIOS) that a bootable disk is in the DVD drive. The IsoLinux image boots (pretty SuSE 8.2 installation Welcome screen), and I see the progress bar load the image from the DVD. Then the screen goes black, with just a blinking cursor, and hangs there. I don't see any other information that helps me see what's going wrong.

I have tried everything I can think of in BIOS settings, SCSI BIOS settings, etc. to make this work, but nothing seems to help. Everything has the latest BIOS updates. I've looked on the SuSE support db, and I don't see anything that resembles this problem. I've googled around and haven't found anything, and the folks on my local linux ug list don't seem to know anything.

Does anyone out there have some insight that might be able to help me?

Thanks,

Kind regards, -- Gerhard den Hollander Phone :+31-10.280.1515 Global IT Support manager Direct:+31-10.280.1539 Jason Geosystems BV Fax :+31-10.280.1511 (When calling please note: we are in GMT+1) gdenhollander@jasongeo.com POBox 1573 visit us at http://www.jasongeo.com 3000 BN Rotterdam JASON.......#1 in Reservoir Characterization The Netherlands

This e-mail and any attachment is/are intended solely for the named addressee(s) and may contain information that is confidential and privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, we request that you do not disseminate, forward, distribute or copy this e-mail message. If you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify us immediately by telephone and destroy the original message.

rex

9 May 9 May

00:37

New subject: [SLE] Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters

Gerhard den Hollander [2003-05-08 11:22]:

...

* Peter B Van Campen (Thu, May 08, 2003 at 10:12:08AM -0500)

...
Dear Ronc,

The Adaptec 2940U2W can handle 15 connected SCSI devices plus itself, making 16 SCSI ids. Why do you need 2 SCSI controllers? You could put all the listed devices on one card and not even have to re-plug the SCSI ids.

Couple of reasons I can think of. If one of the devices is narrow, you can only have 7 devices on the chain, and the chainlength (including internal cabling) is limited to 3Meters.

The adapter determines the maximum number of devices. Having narrow (8 bit) devices on the bus has nothing to do with it, other than that no more than 7 narrow devices can be on the bus, along with another 8 wide devices. Maximum cable length depends on whether the system is LVD or single-ended and the bus speed.

...

Also if you have one (or more) narrow devices, they will drag down the bus speed, in which case it makes a lot of sense to have 2 cards, one with the narrow disk and somce slower devices (tapedrives, cd, dvd &c) and use the other card for high performance devices.

Perhaps. Good SCSI adapters allow setting individual bus speeds for each device, so a slow device that is seldom used will have no effect on the bus speed (except when it is being used). -rex

rex

8 May 8 May

23:03

New subject: [SLE] Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters

roncordell@attbi.com [2003-05-08 08:32]:

...

I seem to have a problem with installing SuSE (or any Linux, for that matter) on a system with multiple SCSI adapters.

M/B - Abit BE6-II 800Mhz P3 768MB Ram, onboard HPT366 IDE (disabled) SCSI Adapter #1 (in PCI slot #2) - Adaptec 2940UW, SCSI ID = 2 - CD R/W Drive, SCSI ID = 1 - DVD Drive, SCSI ID = 5 - Hard Drive #1, SCSI ID = 6 SCSI Adapter #2 (in PCI slot #4) - Adaptec 2940U2W, SCSI ID = 7 - Hard Drive #2, SCSI ID = 0 - Hard Drive #3, SCSI ID = 4

When I place the SuSE 8.2 DVD installation disk, I get the message on the boot screen (BIOS) that a bootable disk is in the DVD drive. The IsoLinux image boots (pretty SuSE 8.2 installation Welcome screen), and I see the progress bar load the image from the DVD. Then the screen goes black, with just a blinking cursor, and hangs there. I don't see any other information that helps me see what's going wrong.

I have tried everything I can think of in BIOS settings, SCSI BIOS settings, etc. to make this work, but nothing seems to help.

Have you tried installing from the CDs? I'm running 8.2 on a system with 2 SCSI cards with no problems, so it is possible. As another poster mentioned it's unusual to set the card(s) to anything other than ID = 7. It's also unusual to set the boot HD to ID = 6 (typically it's ID = 0). The first thing I'd try is setting 1st 2940 to ID = 7. If that doesn't help, set the HD to ID = 0 (this won't conflict with HD#2 which is also set to ID = 0 on the 2nd adapter because they are independent). You'll also need to set the boot device to ID 0 in the 2940 BIOS and enable booting from CD (ctrl-a). Hmm. That may cause a problem because it will probably try to boot from the CD (ID = 1) rather than the DVD (ID = 5). You could avoid this by setting the CD R/W drive to an ID higher than the DVD. BTW, as another poster mentioned, you should be able to run all these devices with one 2940, though it might be easier to leave two in. I commonly run multiple U2W LVD drives and a CD on a 2940U2W. The drives run on the U2W bus and the CD runs on the 8 bit bus. If HD #1 supports U2W, it will be faster if it runs under the U2W adapter. Feel free to take this to email. I've been running SCSI since it was SASI and I think I've seen most of the problems that can occur. HTH, -rex

Ralph Sanford

9 May 9 May

02:33

New subject: [SLE] Installation of 8.2 - Multiple SCSI Adapters

On Thu, 2003-05-08 at 06:31, roncordell@attbi.com wrote:

...

Hi all,

I seem to have a problem with installing SuSE (or any Linux, for that matter) on a system with multiple SCSI adapters. I think the problem is how the system is configured, not with SuSE or Linux itself, so I was hoping someone could tell me what I might be doing wrong.

M/B - Abit BE6-II 800Mhz P3 768MB Ram, onboard HPT366 IDE (disabled) SCSI Adapter #1 (in PCI slot #2) - Adaptec 2940UW, SCSI ID = 2 - CD R/W Drive, SCSI ID = 1 - DVD Drive, SCSI ID = 5 - Hard Drive #1, SCSI ID = 6 SCSI Adapter #2 (in PCI slot #4) - Adaptec 2940U2W, SCSI ID = 7 - Hard Drive #2, SCSI ID = 0 - Hard Drive #3, SCSI ID = 4

When I place the SuSE 8.2 DVD installation disk, I get the message on the boot screen (BIOS) that a bootable disk is in the DVD drive. The IsoLinux image boots (pretty SuSE 8.2 installation Welcome screen), and I see the progress bar load the image from the DVD. Then the screen goes black, with just a blinking cursor, and hangs there. I don't see any other information that helps me see what's going wrong.

I have tried everything I can think of in BIOS settings, SCSI BIOS settings, etc. to make this work, but nothing seems to help. Everything has the latest BIOS updates. I've looked on the SuSE support db, and I don't see anything that resembles this problem. I've googled around and haven't found anything, and the folks on my local linux ug list don't seem to know anything.

Does anyone out there have some insight that might be able to help me?

Thanks,

-ronc

Most of the possible suggestions that I was going to mentioned were covered quite well by rex@nosyntax.net in his responses to your query. I have two desktops set up with 2 scsi cards each and they work awesome with SuSE of all variants including 8.2 Your boot hard disk probably should be id "0" and you definitely have to ensure that the scsi card recognizes the hard disk as "bootable". Having the boot hard drive on the same scsi card as the cd and dvd will cause the install to be slow, as the dvd and hard drive will be in use at the same time and the scsi card will operate at the speed of the slower device (20 mb/s). If possible, connecting all the the hard drives (faster devices) to the 2940u2w and leaving the peripherals (slower devices) on the 2940uw would be a preferable setting. BTW the setup I typically use is to install the slower scsi card with the peripherals in pci slot 1 or 2 (shared irq). The faster scsi card in pci slot 3 or 4 with the hard drives. The boot drive is always set to id "0" from the second scsi card. This setup works without problems. Because you can get the isoLinux image started and then the dvd hangs I suspect that my comments above and the suggestions that others have sent to do not fully address your situation. I did not have any problems with SuSE 8.2 being installed on my Adaptec 29160 cards, but I and others had problems with installing SuSE 8.1 and apparently also the Adaptec 2940 series of cards. The solution was to select a "manual installation" and then select the scsi module to be loaded. Choose the "OLD aic7xxx" rather than the new module. Using the "old" module made the install work for the 29160 and 2940 cards with SuSE 8.1, so give that a try. Of course there is also the common standby with SuSE 8.2 of installing with "ACPI off". ps. Not familiar with the ABIT motherboard that you are using but did you go in to the motherboard BIOS and switch off the IDE controller and set the IDE hard drives to "none" and set the boot device to "SCSI"? HTH -- Ralph Sanford - If your government does not trust you, rsanford@telusplanet.net - should you trust your government? DH/DSS Key - 0x7A1BEA01

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Gerhard den Hollander
Ken Schneider
Peter B Van Campen
Ralph Sanford
rex
roncordell＠attbi.com