# 2.6.23 on an HP a1250n [SOLVED]

## mick1001

Until now, having worked with Linux from 1993 I have never failed to get a working kernel...but I must admit defeat now.

I have an HP Pavillion a1250n. Early AMD64 dual-core. The 2.6.16 kernel (ck-sources) work fine but I was away for about a year and I did a huge emerge --update world --deep

I can't get the new gentoo-sources 2.6.23-r3 to see the ATI IXP ATA drives.

I have done the following:

Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers 

  turn on AHCI SATA support, ATI PATA support, Generic ATA support.

Under ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support,

   turn on Include IDE/ATA-2 DISK support, Generic PCI IDE Chipset Support, PCI IDE chipset support, and Sharing PCI IDE interrupts support, ATI IXP chipset IDE support 

Made sure Support for SATA (deprecated; conflicts with libata SATA driver) is off. 

I normally just compile the disk drivers into the kernel and not use an initram to boot, but I have tried both ways here.

On booting I get the error message "Root device /dev/sdd5 is not valid"

It only sees my two CDROMs on the PATA IDE ports hdc and hdd. I have also tried using the old (non-libata) driver and couldn't get it to work either.

Any ideas?Last edited by mick1001 on Fri Jan 18, 2008 2:38 am; edited 1 time in total

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## mick1001

Something just struck me. I see to remember years ago when I originally set this up it used SIlicon Image SATA. IS ATI IXP SATA different now? Maybe I need the Silicone Image drivers. I'll try that tonight.

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## Veldrin

This might be... check you system specs with lspci. it should tell you, what hardware you have.

A quick check on my current kernel (24_rc7-zen2 - not exactly a 23-gentoo) showed at least 2 different Silicon Image SATA drivers (SATA_SIL, SATA_SIL24).

otherwise you can still use the brute force approach - activate all as modules, and see which one gets used. I advise using genkernel for that.

just my .02$

V.

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## mick1001

 *Veldrin wrote:*   

> This might be... check you system specs with lspci. it should tell you, what hardware you have.
> 
> A quick check on my current kernel (24_rc7-zen2 - not exactly a 23-gentoo) showed at least 2 different Silicon Image SATA drivers (SATA_SIL, SATA_SIL24).
> 
> otherwise you can still use the brute force approach - activate all as modules, and see which one gets used. I advise using genkernel for that.
> ...

 

Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.

I tried building everything as a module  with genkernel and it built an initram with NO modules included. I was getting tired by then and I normally build kernels manually so I am not too familiar with genkernel, but how do I get it to put the modules in the init ram disk?

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## Veldrin

configure your kernel as always, then run

```
nice genkernel --no-clean --loglevel=3 all
```

I use nice, because genkernel otherwise runs with normal priority

--no-clean preserves you config

--loglevel=3 gives you the  output, you would get with a normal kernel compilation (I hate flying blind)

this will generate 2 file is boot - kernel-genkernel-${arch}-${version}, initramfs-genkernel-${arch}-${version}. Change your grub config - you might want to add doscsi to the kernel line - and don't forget the initrd line.

genkernel adds all modules required for boot - i.e. chipset drivers - to the initramfs

I post an example line form my grub.conf - please ignore the multiple kernel opts I am using

```
title=2.6.24_rc7-zen2-2 - Arr Matey! A Hairy Bilge Rat!

kernel (hd0,0)/linux-2.6.24_rc7-zen2-2g ro root=/dev/sda3 acpi=on vbe mce idebus=66 ide0=udma5 ide1=ata100 udev acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode libata.atapi_enable=1 usbcore.autosuspend=1 resume=swap:/dev/sda2 doscsi scsi_mod.scan=sync

initrd (hd0,0)/initrd-2.6.24_rc7-zen2-2g
```

HTH

cheers

V.

[edit: missing initrd comment]

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## mick1001

Thanks.

I tried 

--bootloader=grub

maybe manual is better.

Also I use

schedtool -B -e genkernel

that actually makes the kernel build as the idle process to the kernel. Even better then nice!

Thanks again.

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## mick1001

It is the silicone image SATA driver

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