Linux on nForce4, does not recognize drives!?!

[BigPete]

Well, I have tried 4 different distro's and not one recognizes my disk setup. I have tried Knoppix, SUSE LiveCD 9.2, Gentoo, and Fedora Core 3 and they all boot just fine but when I start the installation, none of them recognize any of my drives.

This is kind of strange to me because Windows installed just fine without needing to use F6 or anything. I through linux would have handled my setup flawlessly but I guess not.

I've tried searching everywhere (google, here, distro specific forums) and I cant seem to find a solution. Does anyone have Linux running on an nForce4 board that uses all SATA drives? If it helps, my setup is as follows:

MSI Neo4 Plat
3500+ Winchester
1GB Mushkin
Plextor PX-716SA
74GB Raptor
250GB Seagate SATA
BFG PCIe 6800GT OC
SoundBlaster Audigy 2

 

[n0cmonkey]

Is the SATA controller supported by the kernels you're trying to use?
Is there a non-nVidia SATA controller on board? I'm reading an email that says there is a Silicon Image controller too, maybe you could try that instead (more likely to be supported). Although, it looks like Fedora has issues with SI controllers...
It looks like you need something like kernel 2.6.10 to load a driver called "sata_nv.ko" if you leave it on the nVidia controller.

This is why I hate nVidia chipsets.

 

[BigPete]

Thanks a lot for your reply. Can you suggest a distro that loads that kernel for the installation routine? Support for SATA seems flip flopped between nix and windows. Windows has no issues witht he nVidia controller but you need the drivers to install on the SI controller.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I'm not 100% positive that's the problem.
You might be able to get Gentoo to work, I've never tried.
Trying to find a list of what kernels different distros use is like trying to get decent GNU documentation.
Mandrake 10.2 betas are using 2.6.10.

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I'm not 100% positive that's the problem.
You might be able to get Gentoo to work, I've never tried.
Trying to find a list of what kernels different distros use is like trying to get decent GNU documentation.
Mandrake 10.2 betas are using 2.6.10.

Did you just recommend Gentoo? I think I feel faint.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: rahvin

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I'm not 100% positive that's the problem.
You might be able to get Gentoo to work, I've never tried.
Trying to find a list of what kernels different distros use is like trying to get decent GNU documentation.
Mandrake 10.2 betas are using 2.6.10.

Did you just recommend Gentoo? I think I feel faint.

I'm not Nothinman. I'd recommend Debian, but they won't have a 2.6 kernel for at least 10 years.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Oh, Slackware 10.1 has 2.6.10 as an alternate kernel choice.

 

[BigPete]

Thank you, sir. I'm all over that. Alternate choice meaning type in alt1 or something like that at the prompt?

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: rahvin
Did you just recommend Gentoo? I think I feel faint.

I'm not Nothinman. I'd recommend Debian, but they won't have a 2.6 kernel for at least 10 years.

I know, you are the monkeyman who lambasted me once for even suggesting Gentoo. Hey maybe by the time Debian has a 2.6 kernel Portage will run with some resemblance of speed.

Gentoo lets you specify whatever kernel version you want. They have vanilla kernels, gentoo kernels, NSA kernels etc.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: BigPete
Thank you, sir. I'm all over that. Alternate choice meaning type in alt1 or something like that at the prompt?

I haven't installed it in a while. I think you choose something different at the boot prompt at the beginning, but I'm not sure. Try hitting tab or typing help or something...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: rahvin

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: rahvin
Did you just recommend Gentoo? I think I feel faint.

I'm not Nothinman. I'd recommend Debian, but they won't have a 2.6 kernel for at least 10 years.

I know, you are the monkeyman who lambasted me once for even suggesting Gentoo. Hey maybe by the time Debian has a 2.6 kernel Portage will run with some resemblance of speed.

Gentoo lets you specify whatever kernel version you want. They have vanilla kernels, gentoo kernels, NSA kernels etc.

I've semi-recently decided I just don't care.

 

[rahvin]

ac-sources grsec-sources mips-sources uclinux-sources
alpha-sources hardened-dev-sources mm-sources usermode-sources
ck-sources hardened-sources openmosix-sources vanilla-sources
config-kernel hppa-sources pegasos-sources vserver-sources
development-sources ksymoops ppc64-headers win4lin-sources
genkernel linux-headers rsbac-dev-sources wolk-sources
gentoo-dev-sources linux26-headers rsbac-sources xbox-sources
gentoo-sources mips-headers sparc-sources


And the contents of the gentoo-sources tree:
ChangeLog gentoo-sources-2.6.10-r6.ebuild
Manifest gentoo-sources-2.6.10-r7.ebuild
files gentoo-sources-2.6.11.ebuild
gentoo-sources-2.4.20-r32.ebuild gentoo-sources-2.6.8-r3.ebuild
gentoo-sources-2.4.25-r16.ebuild gentoo-sources-2.6.9-r14.ebuild
gentoo-sources-2.4.28-r7.ebuild gentoo-sources-2.6.9-r9.ebuild
gentoo-sources-2.6.1-r2.ebuild metadata.xml

and the contents of the vanilla sources:
ChangeLog vanilla-sources-2.4.24-r1.ebuild
Manifest vanilla-sources-2.4.25.ebuild
files vanilla-sources-2.4.26.ebuild
metadata.xml vanilla-sources-2.4.27.ebuild
vanilla-sources-2.0.40.ebuild vanilla-sources-2.4.28.ebuild
vanilla-sources-2.2.26.ebuild vanilla-sources-2.4.29.ebuild
vanilla-sources-2.4.20.ebuild vanilla-sources-2.6.10.ebuild
vanilla-sources-2.4.21.ebuild vanilla-sources-2.6.11.ebuild
vanilla-sources-2.4.22.ebuild vanilla-sources-2.6.5.ebuild
vanilla-sources-2.4.23.ebuild vanilla-sources-2.6.7.ebuild

 

[BigPete]

Hmmm, I tried Mandrake 10.1 with the default kernel and it seems to have picked up my hard drives however there is still no CD-ROM support. I might just have to wait for an updated kernel or something. I'm sure there has to be a fix but I think this might be out of my newbie league.

 

[n0cmonkey]

You could install with a real cdrom instead of that SATA stuff.

 

[BigPete]

I could, but thats not really the answer I'm looking for. If I am going to get it running I would rather it be because I (with some help, obviously) have found a solution.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: BigPete
I could, but thats not really the answer I'm looking for. If I am going to get it running I would rather it be because I (with some help, obviously) have found a solution.

You have different goals than myself. I want a working system, you want to work the system.

Understood.

 

[BigPete]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: BigPete
I could, but thats not really the answer I'm looking for. If I am going to get it running I would rather it be because I (with some help, obviously) have found a solution.

You have different goals than myself. I want a working system, you want to work the system.

Understood.

That's not fair. I have working systems. But what's wrong with trying to get this to work with this setup? I'm just trying to learn a bit and I would imagine that using a PATA CD-ROM drive would only be a crutch if anything.

I do appreciate your guys' help and I'm downloading Slackware as we speak so I can give that a try. :beer:

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: BigPete

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: BigPete
I could, but thats not really the answer I'm looking for. If I am going to get it running I would rather it be because I (with some help, obviously) have found a solution.

You have different goals than myself. I want a working system, you want to work the system.

Understood.

That's not fair. I have working systems. But what's wrong with trying to get this to work with this setup? I'm just trying to learn a bit and I would imagine that using a PATA CD-ROM drive would only be a crutch if anything.

I do appreciate your guys' help and I'm downloading Slackware as we speak so I can give that a try. :beer:

I didn't mean that it was a bad thing. I'd just want the system up and running. You want to do things the hard (but not necessarily bad) way and possibly learn something. :beer:

I'm lazy.

 

[BigPete]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: BigPete

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: BigPete
I could, but thats not really the answer I'm looking for. If I am going to get it running I would rather it be because I (with some help, obviously) have found a solution.

You have different goals than myself. I want a working system, you want to work the system.

Understood.

That's not fair. I have working systems. But what's wrong with trying to get this to work with this setup? I'm just trying to learn a bit and I would imagine that using a PATA CD-ROM drive would only be a crutch if anything.

I do appreciate your guys' help and I'm downloading Slackware as we speak so I can give that a try. :beer:

I didn't mean that it was a bad thing. I'd just want the system up and running. You want to do things the hard (but not necessarily bad) way and possibly learn something. :beer:

I'm lazy.

:heart:

I'll let you know how slack works out after I get my Media Center going. Woot?

 

[silverpig]

You just have to find out what driver to use. I'm pretty sure gentoo will work. Check the forums over there, they are really great about hardware support.

If you can boot the livecd and have the drives work, then you can get them to work with one of their kernels. I use the gentoo-dev-sources as they are stable, fast, and up to date. love-sources are also really good. I've used them in the past with great success.

You just have to compile the right options into your kernel.

Here ya go, straight from the gentoo forums:

The board I'm in love with is the MSI Neo4 SLI, which surprised me since I really didn't like the neo2 Platinum. My 1 single complain with this board is that the onboard SB Live! 24bit didn't work in Linux for me, so I just picked up a used audigy for $25. This board has none of the problems I've seen with the gigabyte and asus boards, and overclocks like a champ, I'm running system bus at 255 a 3200+ at 2550mhz, and ram 1:1 at 510ddr 2.5-3-3-10 1T. Fairly cheap mobo too. The board also has a hidden option to overclock your video cards from the mobos cmos. If you go into the Cell Menu and hit shift-F2 alt-F3 some new options will pop up for overclocking the video card, though you might have to try a few times to make it pop up.

This will probably help you with the drives... It's specific to the a8n-sli, but should work with your board as well:

Setup: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nFORCE4 SLi 939 with most recent BIOS from Asus website. SATA drive (not used as RAID), plugged into the nvidia (black) plugs on the motherboard. Make sure the BIOS detects the drive as SATA Master 1.

1. at boot prompt do
gentoo noapic

2. when booted, do
modprobe sata_nv
which lets you see the SATA drive

3. then do
modprobe sk98lin
which lets you see the Marvell LAN connection.

4. net-setup eth0

5. fdisk /dev/sda
etc...

See
[L]http://www.juju.org/archives/2005/01/09/installing-gentoo-x86_64[/L]

for more instructions (different board, but you'll see you need to make some changes to compiling the kernel).

 

[BigPete]

Hey, thanks a lot. That link is pretty helpful too!

 

[Wyck]

The sad news is that once you get past the SATA hurdle you graduate to the PCIe nightmare.

 

[REMF]

whats wrong with Linux support for PCI-E?

 

[Wyck]

It's not a problem with Linux support in general, it's a problem with 64-bit distros and PCIe.

 

[BigPete]

I thought that PCIe problem was specific to the 6600 line of cards?