upgrade attempt

James R. Van Zandt jrvz at comcast.net
Mon Jul 14 21:13:34 EDT 2008


I tried adding a new disk to my Myth box, but it was not recognized.
I took the new disk back out, but now it won't boot off the original
disk!

Here are the details:

My Myth machine has an AOpen i915Ga-HFS mother board with integrated
SATA controller, and a 500 GB Seagate SATA disk drive, which has been
working fine for many months.  Recently I decided to add a second
drive and configure it as a backup server for several other machines.
I bought a Western Digital 750 GB SATA2 drive for $115 from Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136150

I found I had connected the original drive as "B master".  I left
that, and connected the new drive as "A master".  When I tried to
boot, I got these error messages:
   ata1.00: failed to set xfer mode (err_mask=0x4)
   ata1.00: failed to set xfer mode (err_mask=0x4)
   ata1.00: failed to set xfer mode (err_mask=0x4)
   ata2.00: failed to set xfer mode (err_mask=0x4)
   ata2.00: failed to set xfer mode (err_mask=0x4)
   ata2.00: failed to set xfer mode (err_mask=0x4)

   Reading all physical volumes.  This may take a while...
   No volume groups found
   Volume group "VolGroup00" not found
   Unable to access resume device (/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02)
   mount: culd not find filesystem '/dev/root'

I tried reversing cables, but got the same errors.

I disconnected the data cable only on the new drive, and it booted
normally.

I googled for the "xfer mode" message, and found a solution at
http://fak3r.com/2007/06/22/failed-to-set-xfermode-solved/, to add
"irqpoll" to the kernel command line.  I did that using vi under
MythDora, and reconnected the new drive.  At the next boot I got these
messages:

   Booting 'MythDora (2.6.20-1.2944.fc.6)'
   root (hd0,0)
     Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   kernel /vmlinuz-1.6.20-1.2944.fc6 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet irqpoll
   Error 15: File not found
   Press any key to continue...

Pressing <ret> brought up the GRUB menu with only one kernel listed.
Pressing <ret> again returned me to the "File not found" message.

Next I disconnected the original disk and booted Knoppix 4.0.
"smartctl --all /dev/sda" reported:

   Drive: ATA  WDC WD7500AACS-0   Version: 01.0
   Serial number:  WD-WDASN0104662
   Device type: disk
   Local time is: Mon Jul 14 21:41:21 2008 EDT
   Device does not support SMART
   Device does not support Error Counter logging
   [GLTSD (Global Logging Target Save Disable) set.  Enable Save with '-S on']
   Device does not support Self Test Logging
   
I was disappointed about this brand new drive not supporting SMART and
decided to return it.  I disconnected it, reconnected the original
disk as "B master" as before, and booted.  But I got the same "File
not found" message as above!

Since then I've tried:

 - Using the "e" command in GRUB to edit the kernel command line, to
   remove the "irqpoll".  No change.

 - Booting Knoppix with only the original disk connected.  "smartctl
   --all /dev/sda" reports that disk doesn't support SMART.  I know it
   does, because I was running short and extended SMART tests on it
   last week.  I suppose the new disk really supports SMART too.

 - Using emacs under Knoppix to edit grub/menu.lst to permanently
   remove the "irqpoll".  No change.

Under Knoppix, I can read the disk and don't see anything obviously
wrong.  Unfortunately, it's set up with LVM, and I'm not very familiar
with that.

grub/menu.lst looks like this:

   default=0
   timeout=5
   splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
   hiddenmenu
   title MythDora (2.6.20-1.2944.fc.6)
          root (hd0,0)
          kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.20-1.2944.fc6 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
          initrd /initrd-2.6.20-1.2944.fc6.img

The kernel and initrd files are there.  So what file is not found?
   
I'd appreciate any suggestions.

         - Jim Van Zandt


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