Slack 10 on SATA

[vwgtiturbo]

Ok, I have 2 SATA HDD's, and an DVDRW as the master on primary IDE, and am HDD as slave on the primary IDE channel (no floppy drive). I was able to install Slack to the IDE drive, but could not boot it. My system will not let me boot off of a secondary drive (I don't know if that is normal or not, as I have never had the need to try). In any case, I decided to go ahead and use the secondary IDE channel, and put the DVDRW as the master on it, THEN use the primary channel for the IDE drive, also setting it to master.
So, I reinstalled Slack on the IDE (because simply changing the drive's location would not allow me to boot it). Now, if I want to boot Slack, I have to change the boot order in my BIOS (what a pain). I am looking at putting Slack on the first SATA channel HDD, with Win, but I understand that I will need to compile another kernel, as Slack 10 does not support my VT8237 SATA controller out of the box
Question: Can I boot into Slack, compile a kernel to support my SATA, then incorporate the kernel image into my Slack10 ISO? See, I want to be able to redo Slack setup with the newly compiled kernel, and I don't have a floppy drive, so it would be great to put it into the ISO, then when I go to install Slack on the SATA drive, setup asks me what kernel I want to boot with, I could simply type the name of the kernel, and off I go...

[SkyNet]

I'm pretty sure you can boot off a secondary device you just need to change the boot order in the BIOS, but that makes total since.

About the ISO question. Yes this can be done, but I don't know how to do it without research. Please check out http://www.linuxpackages.net/ forums for this. I think they have something.

[vwgtiturbo]

Okay, here is where I am...
Last night, I downloaded an ISO (made by some guy called bonecrusher), and it had an SATA kernel built into it. Actually, when booting off of the CD, the SATA kernel was default.
So, I booted off the CD, loaded the sata.i kernel, then went into fdisk. Lo and behold, it saw my SATA drives. SWEET! I partitioned and went through the whole setup. All was good. That is, until I went to install LILO. When it asks you what kernel you want to load at boot, the sata.i kernel was not in the list. So, I experimented and tried random kernels. None worked. I booted from the CD again, and explored the disc. The sata.i kernel was in the /kernels directory, so it should have been on the list of kernels to choose from. Anyways, I started the setup about 7 times, setting up the swap and partitions (not formatting them, as they already had the system installed) because I could not choose the "Reconfigure system" option from the startup menu without having my partitions setup. I went through the LILO setup on the eighth try, and the sata.i kernel was on the list. Odd... why wasn't it there before? Beats the hell out of me.
SO, now I am able to choose the correct kernel. I had to run LILO setup another 10 or so times, installing it to the MBR for some of them, and installing to the Root Linux superblock, because none of them would work.
When installing to the MBR, where does the system put it? On the first IDE drive, or the first drive as outlined in the BIOS?
SATA 1= Win
SATA 2= Lin
IDE = webserver root
I tried to install LILO both from the setup menu, and from the command line (without starting setup). Nothing worked. I was specifying the device as sda1 (since this is the first drive as outlined in the BIOS) with no success. I did not try to put it on sdb (I just thought of that), but I did try to put it on IDE drive, and that did work, as far as booting Lin, but my Win entry did not work. I spent about 2 hours trying different edits to the LILO config, with no success.

Basically, all three of my drives have boot info on it, but LILO still doesn't work. With the behavior I am seeing, it is almost as if it isn't writing LILO to any of my SATA drives (although it did install the system on SATA drives, and I can boot it if I boot off of the IDE drive's MBR)

What a mess.... I think that if I set the system to boot off of SDB, all will be good. I can't believe I overlooked that. I originally intended to put Lin on the IDE drive, but changed my mind, and put it on the 2nd SATA drive. I have a feeling that when I wrote it to the superblock, it wrote it to the 2nd SATA drive, since that is where Lin is installed. I will try to boot off of that drive, and I have a feeling that it will work... If it works, I am going to feel like such an idiot. I will let you guys know this evening.

[vwgtiturbo]

Okay, scratch that... booting from sdb didn't work either. So, I have a fully installed Slack system that I can only boot if I set the system to boot from the IDE drive, but if I want to boot Win, I have to set the system to boot off of the first SATA drive. Well...crap.

[vwgtiturbo]

Well, I am a little burned out. I think I am going to give up on this for a bit, because I am at wits end...
The problem seems to be that I am not writing LILO to the SATA drives. I have tried booting from the IDE drive into Slack, then running /sbin/lilo -M /dev/sda and /dev/sdb in an attempt to have it write to the SATA drives, but neither one of them seems to work. I wish I could just nail it down to what the problem was. At least then, I would have something to try to fix. As it stands now, the sata.i kernel obviously loaded, as I CAN boot into Slack (when booting from the IDE drive) so it is reading the SATA drives. It has to be a LILO issue... If I could get LILO installed on the IDE drive correctly (so that the Windows option would work) then I could just boot of the IDE all the time, instead of having to change it, based on whatever OS I feel inclined to boot that day.
I hate to admit it, but this is one reason I have been attached to Win for so long... It just works (usually). I have dabble with Lin for a couple of years now (off and on, mostly off), and although I don't mind doing some work to make the system do something spectacular, I HATE doing to crap load of work just to do a basic task. Oh well... Nothing is perfect.

[babbing]

http://people.zeelandnet.nl/pa3gcu/sata.htm

I have looked a bit further into this, and it doesn't not look simple, so be patient. A peice of info that you have not provided yet is your kernel version. The above link for a setup a guy did with SATA drives, in Slack, with a 2.4 kernel.

You may also find the following link has good info and some tuts that could help. Your situation is not clearly defined to me, so this is the best I can do. From here on out, see if you can start from scratch, and clearly list your steps, and problems encountered along the way in as linear a fashion as possible.

http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html


Thanks,

Babbing

[vwgtiturbo]

Thanks for the help, Babbing. I do apologize for the lack of information. I was trying SO MANY different things, and it was incredibly hard to keep up with all of the errors/malfunctions I was experiencing. When I sat down to write the post, I simply couldn't remember what exactly I had done, and what the result is... I will start from scratch here in the next couple of days, and let you know how I fare. Thanks again!

[babbing]

Thank you. It was getting difficult to see what you had done, and what went wrong

[vwgtiturbo]

Okay, ROUND 9... wait... I think it is round 10, coincidentally...

Quick rundown of system:
SATA Drive on SATA Channel 1
SATA Drive on SATA Channel 2
IDE on Primary Master

WinXP is on SATA 1
I wanted to put Slack 10 on SATA 2, but instead opted for the IDE drive to TRY to make it work...
In my BIOS, my hard drive priority (not to be confused with Boot Disk Priority) is SATA 1, SATA 2, and IDE
My Boot Priority throughout installation was CDROM, with all others disabled, and when running normally, SATA 1 has priority, with all others disabled.

So, I could not get LILO's Windows entry to work from the last time I attempted to install Slack, SO I installed a trial of Acronis OS Selector. Now, this installs to the MBR (SATA 1, I assume, since that it what my system was set to boot off of). That didn't work, displaying only a crap-load of '99's when I tried to boot Linux.

I decided that I was sick of all of the running around I have done, and thought that I would start all over, from scratch.
I booted off of the CD, using the sata.i kernel (I thought that maybe, even though I was installing to IDE this time, that I would need it to write LILO to the MBR, and to see the SATA drives so I could add them to the LILOconf and mount them after installation). Installation went well, I suppose, but when it came time to setup LILO, things got a little odd...
I choose to install LILO to the superblock of the root partition, not wanting to fry my MBR like last time (for some reason, ever since slipstreaming SP2, I don't have the option of booting from the CD and choosing 'fixmbr' to fix the MBR when Linux installs go awry). So, I go through this LILO setup process, adding a Linux partition to boot, and a Win partition to boot. The odd thing is, when you choose what kernel you want to boot, the sata.i kernel is not on the list (but if you explore the CD, it is in the kernels directory). The MOST odd part... after the installation was complete, I booted from the CD again, as if to reinstall Slack. I didn't run fdisk again, I just started setup. If you choose "configure system" from the setup menu, it doesn't let me do anything, BUT if I setup the swap and all of the partitions, I can choose the "configure system" option. Essentially, I am only doing the LILO setup. When I skip the installation process like this, I am able to choose the sata.i kernel during LILO setup, but when I have to choose a kernel during LILO setup after initial system installation, sata.i kernel is not on the list. WTF?
Anyways, I didn't reinstall LILO this time, I just left it alone.
In summary, I have Acronis on the MBR of SATA 1, and LILO on the superblock of the IDE drive (HDA1). This is annoying, but the Acronis part works. If I choose Linux, it will direct me to HDA1. The problem is that it takes me to LILO. Then I have to choose AGAIN what OS I want. If I choose Slack, all is good, but when I choose Win, it just hangs on "Loading WindowsXP".
I am in the same spot I was in BEFORE the reinstall. The only differences are that now I have Acronis, and now I am not booting from the sata.i kernel (last time, I did manage to get it to work, I think), but the behavior is exactly the same. Hangs on Windows load. It is almost as if LILO cannot find SDA1 (where Win is loaded).

I know that I am very wordy, as I hate to only partially explain something. I feel the need to be as complete as possible, but I know it can be confusing as all hell, so let me know if there is something you would like clarified.

I thought about removing Acronis, then booting from IDE (I think you can boot from the superblock, yes?), and trying to install LILO to the MBR. The only problem is that if something goes wrong, I am screwed, as I my XP disc no longer has fixmbr capabilities (??).

What a day... And to think... I have a personal computer in my office, with good ol' IDE drives, and Slack is running flawlessy on it. Damn new-fangled SATA technology...

EDIT:

Here is a snippet from my lilo.conf, just in case someone sees something out of the ordinary... Oh yeah, the 'sda1' below is the correct partition for Win... Should I be uncommenting one of the 'map-drive' and 'to' options??

# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda1
label = Slackware-10
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/sda1
label = Windows-XP-Pro
# map-drive = 0x80
# to = 0x81
# map-drive = 0x81
# to = 0x80
table = /dev/sda
# Windows bootable partition config ends

[vwgtiturbo]

Well, this episode is over... for now. I did manage to get this working. It was a pain in the arse, but...

I ended up reinstalling Slack to an IDE drive. Now, when I booted off of this SATA enabled (2.4 kernel) ISO, I choose to load sata.i. Unfortunately, as I stated before, when I went through the LILO configuration after installing the packages, sata.i was NOT on the list of available kernels. I ended up just using bare.i, and of course, when all was said and done, I rebooted and could not access resources on my SATA drives.

So, I booted from the CD again, and skipped fdisk (as disks are already partitioned and Slack was already installed) and went into the 'setup'. I tried to 'Configure The System', but it wouldn't let me. I setup the swap partition, and mounted my other partitions (all from within the setup menu) and for some reason, it then LET me choose the 'Configure System' option. Now, I went through the whole thing (setting up the network, etc.) and when it gets to the screen that you choose what kernel you want to use, sata.i IS NOW ON THIS LIST. WTF?? Immediately after installing the system, it is not on the list, but if you go back into the setup after rebooting, it magically appears. Whatever...

I am a little irritated, but needless to say, I choose sata.i and proceed to install LILO to the MBR of the IDE drive that I installed Slack onto. I rebooted and set the BIOS to boot from this IDE drive (instead of using Acronis OS selector), and I could boot into Linux, but not Windows.

You can see my LILO.conf file in the post above. After this installation, it looks just like the conf from the last installation.
All I had to do was boot Slack, and edit where it says:

# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/sda1
label = Windows-XP-Pro
# map-drive = 0x80
# to = 0x81
# map-drive = 0x81
# to = 0x80
table = /dev/sda
# Windows bootable partition config ends

I had to uncomment the lines 'map-drive = 0x80' and 'to = 0x81'. Now I can boot Win and Lin. Sweet!

Like I said, I didn't want it to be on the IDE drive, but I will be reinstalling today, since I now know how to get the darn thing to work. Thanks for all of the help and patience, guys. I appreciate it.