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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