Anas, I will check on the email situation... sorry for the inconvenience... Humana has some sort of filtering, so who knows what it is blocking... And I will see about getting the logs from 3rd console or by redirection Cheers, Tony Anas Nashif om> cc: dvosburg@novell.com, lmarks@novell.com, Mike Robinson , pgriffen@novell.com, suse-autoinstall@suse.com, 08/25/2004 03:12 swilson@novell.com PM Subject: Re: [suse-autoinstall] AutoInstall and Western Digital HDD issues. Anthony, For some reason, my direct emails to you do not reach you. Can you please check whats going on. Problem cant be on my side, cause everybody else seems to receive my emails. I am sending this email using a different account hoping it will reach you. I need logs from the setup which is not working. You can always get the logs during installation by switching to 3rd console. An alternative is to boot with logserver=<log server ip> and have a remote machine with syslog capture the messages from the installed client. Regards, Anas Anthony Staples wrote:

Anas,

When the install fails, /dev/hda2 is not formatted and so nothing is

really

written to it. I forgot to mention in my previous post that the SWAP is created (8GB for some reason), but / is not. That is where the format step fails. Is there a facility to redirect logging to the NFS repository?

Cheers, Tony

Anas Nashif

To: Anthony Staples

cc:

suse-autoinstall@suse.com, lmarks@novell.com, pgriffen@novell.com,

08/25/2004 12:42 swilson@novell.com,

dvosburg@novell.com, Mike Robinson

PM Subject: Re:

[suse-autoinstall] AutoInstall and Western Digital HDD issues.

Anthony, Can you please provide the log files for a failed installation?

Thanks, Anas

Anthony Staples wrote:

...

Anas,

RE: Strange behavior regarding Autoinstall and some Western Digital HDDs:

I am trying to develop an autoinstall for NLD 1.6 using a boot cd and an NFS repository. I have three machines that I am using for testing of autoinstall deployments. All are Dell GX60s with 40GB WD HDD, 512 MB RAM and Cereron 2.2Ghz CPUs. All have been updated to the latest DELL GX60 Bios (A08).

As I have posted previously, I have not been able to get any control

files

...

built on my primary test PC to work correctly on the other two units. Autoinstall always fails during the format phase on these other two

units,

...

and so the install does not complete. Here is the text of the error.

"Could not format /dev/hda2. you can continue if you know what you are doing, but, to prevent damage to your filesystems, it is safer to cancel and reboot"

I have tried many different approaches from explicitly setting the partition scheme to using the most generic scheme outlined in the documentation. Each time, the control file works as planned on my primary machine, but fails on the other two test units.

Yesterday, Tuesday, 8/24/2004, I had Steve Wilson and Don Vosburg from Novell in to help me troubleshoot and possibly solve this conundrum. Together we went thru all the different iterations of control files I had tried and some that Don came up with on the spot to try and make partitioning work on the secondary test machines. We rec'd the same results I had encountered over and over. Finally, as a last effort, we switched the hard drive in the "good" primary unit with the hard drive in one of the "bad" secondary units. This switch cause the two machines to exchange behavior. On closer inspection of the HDD we switched out, they were not exactly identical. Though both are Western Digital 40GB HDD,

the

...

model numbers differed slightly and they were manufactured in different countries...

The "good" drive details from visual inspection and WD diagnostics: Completely black outer shell. Manufactured in Thailand M/N: WDC WD400BB-75FJA1 S/N: WD-WCAJC2052229 Firmware: 14.03G14 C H S : 77504 16 63 Drive 0, port 0x01F0 Build Date unknown

The "bad" drive details from visual inspection and WD diagnostics: Black and silver outer shell Manufactured in Malaysia M/N: WDC WD400BB-75FRA0 S/N: WD-WMAJF1089739 Firmware: 77.07W77 C H S: 77504 16 63 Drive 0, port 0x01F0 Build Date: 8-JAN-04

The other failing test machine's drive was manufactured in Singapore...

and

...

also has the black and silver outer shell.

During the testing we also were able to recreate the issue using SLES 9.0 while performing a cdrom autoinstall to the "bad" secondary test unit.

Manual installs do not seem encounter the issue.

Autoinstalls seemed to ignore the partitioning info in the control files

on

...

the secondary test machines.

I have attached many of the autoinstall control files I have used during

my

...

testing and the testing done with Steve and Don from Novell.

(See attached file: ay_006.xml)(See attached file:

autoyast2_gx60.xml)(See

...

attached file: autoyast3_gx60.xml)(See attached file: autoyast_generic_gx60.xml)(See attached file:

autoyast_refpro_gx60.xml)(See

...

attached file: ay_003.xml)(See attached file: ay_004.xml)(See attached file: ay_005.xml)

Anyone's insights appreciated!!! If other info is needed please let me know, I will be happy to provide whatever I can .

Cheers, Tony

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