[Pseudocyber]

I bought the Red Hat Linux 8 Bible and installed RH8 off the enclosed CD's. Went fantastic. I then downloaded the latest patches from RH and again no problems.

I turned off the machine and went home for Xmas.

When I come back, to turn it on, I get a disk controller failure error during POST. I have seen ONE message about trying to run Unix OS on Compaq I need something - but I didn't catch it before it ran by.

I installed it on a Pentium 300 (I think) with about 128Mb RAM. It's a Compaq EP 6300.

Does anyone have any ideas?

TIA

 

[Pseudocyber]

I unplugged the cable from the IDE 1 connector on the mobo and did the rebooty. Then I plugged it back in and it finds it and asks me to do F1 to save changes.

It also says that if I'm running Unix, I need to use the User Diagnostics to configure it - however, using the diagnostic disk, I see NO options to configure a xnix anything.

After running the setup from the Diagnostic diskette it reboots and says...

1782 - Disk Controller Failure

"No fixed disk present"

F1 to save changes.

:upset:

 

[Pseudocyber]

I just ran all the diagnostic tests on the hard drive - the Compaq Diagnostics - and it came up clean.

something to do with having Linux on there ... ???

 

[Pseudocyber]

I used the unplug IDE cable and plug back in trick to get the machine to see the HD. Then I ran the setup, and it sees the HD.

However, I can find NOTHING referring to setting up the HD to use xnix.

 

[V0lt]

Have you tried booting off of a LILO floppy disk? I have had a similar booting problem in the past with Linux (POST didn't even detect my hard drive) which weas solved by booting off that little floppy.

 

[Pseudocyber]

Fox, will I have to boot off the floppy every time?

I tried cold booting off the "emergency disk" that the install created and it failed at a point because the BIOS was telling it there wasn't a hard disk.

I think if I reboot the machine - power off - the hard drive will "disappear" from the BIOS.

 

[Pseudocyber]

Well, I got the flippin thing to boot ... by turning on, reading the "hard disk controller failure message", turning off, unplugging ide cable from mobo, turning back on, turning back off, plugging the cable back in, reading the "Hard drive found blah blah blah" message, and then booting right on up into RH8.

So, how do I fix the thing so I can turn it off?

 

[V0lt]

You mean that every time you turn your computer off, the BIOS loses information about the HD?

 

[Pseudocyber]

Sort of. When the computer reboots, after it's working, it will say there is a controller failure. Then it will say there isn't a HD present. If I unplug the power cable, unplug the IDE cable, reboot, let it come up saying no OS (because the HD is unplugged) and then shut it down, plug the IDE cable back in, turn it back on it will detect it, add it into the BIOS, and then boot normally.

 

[gotissues68]

Hope I haven't come to late to the thread. Now what you're saying if I read correctly is that the BIOS won't see the hard disk upon reboot every so often correct? Or are you getting into the Linux boot process before it pukes? If you're having issues at the BIOS stage, thats not really an issue with Linux as it is with the hardware, although I've seen a dual xeon machine that any version of Linux refused to run on, including attempting to boot up, which well.. is weird.

At any rate if you can clarify that'd be cool And also what type of hard disk are you using? Is there any master/slave action going on? Is it IDE or SCSI? Are you using IDE0 or IDE1 with the master drive? Doing a dual boot?

Drew

 

[Pseudocyber]

Ok:

No dual boot.
IDE 0
Drive type - I'm not sure - the system is booted up and I'm reluctant to pull it out.
It is the master - no slave.
CD on IDE1

It will boot up and load and run. Although it did hang once at "finding dependancies" or something like that.

If I shut it down and turn it off, the system will come back with -1782 Drive Controller failure. and then offer me an F1 to save changes to BIOS.

If I do this, reboot, and then shutdown and unplug power, and IDE cable from mobo and turn it back on, it will come up with no OS present.

Then, if I unplug and plug IDE cable back in, the BIOS will redetect the drive and offer F1 to save changes, and then boot up normally.

It will then repeat the cycle at next boot up.

I ran compaq diagnositcs on the drive and all tests came up good.

There was a screen somewhere - that appears every now and then which talks about running Compaq Setup if using a Unix OS, however, setup has no configuration settings for using Unix that I can see.

The system is a Compaq Deskpro EP 6300 - PII 300mhz, with 128mb RAM, and I believe the Drive is 4gb.

 

[Pseudocyber]

HD type

I shut it down and looked - Western Digital Caviar ~33600

This time I discovered, when it says "1782-Disk Controller Failure, F1 to save" if I just power off and back on, it works.

I tried getting the compaq bios updates but they come in .cab files and I don't know how to apply it.

 

[gotissues68]

Is this a SCSI controller? I'm digging up alot of info from our friend Mr Google, and it relating to SCSI controllers on that model Compaq.

 

[Pseudocyber]

Nope. It's IDE.

 

[gotissues68]

mmkay does this model compaq have both an IDE and SCSI controller?

 

[Pseudocyber]

I doubt it. I'll check.

 

[gotissues68]

K.. just trying to narrow down what I'm finding on google about this. There was an issue not specific to your model that was similar in type ... but it had to do with a SCSI controller barfing if an IDE drive was added to the system.. so thought I'd ask

 

[Pseudocyber]

It seems to be working now, of course I don't reboot it much ...

But what gets me, is there is clearly a message from the BIOS about "You need to use SETUP to configure for Unix" and then the Compaq Setup has NOTHING about Unix in it.

 

[gotissues68]

I couldn't find anything about that.. veddy strange indeed.. good luck sorry I couldn't be more help