# aic7xxx detect. freezes, liveCD boots but mke2fs freezes too

## ohaleck

Hey

I read lots of similiar topics but still can't find the solution.

I'm trying to install Gentoo 1.4 on dualprocessor machine with ATA cdrom and drives connected to AIC7896 controller. 

I boot using smp kernel from liveCD. fdisk runs fine (I can see /dev/sda, /dev/sda1 etc.) but when I try to install a filesystem (mke2fs -j, regular mke2fs or mkreiserfs) the system freezes even after modprobe'ing aic7xxx and aic79xx (79xx doesn't find hardware). 

When I run smp doscsi it detects aic7xxx, goes "Scanning for old_aic7xxx" and freezes.

RedHat 9.0 does fine but I'm not gonna install it. I can make a filesystem but then it freezes when I try to mount it to install Gentoo   :Sad: 

Do you guys have any idea what can help?

Thx in advance

O.

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## treehugger

i had a similar problem, but i was installing the adaptec card on a system that already had gentoo installed.  after installing the card, i could no longer boot gentoo for the reasons that you listed.  i have read lots on the forums about this and the apparent cause is that the kernel is trying to load 2 modules for the same device.  i had to remove the card to boot, then compile a kernel with only one applicable module, and all was well.  but in your case, you appear to have a scsi hd, which makes my solution n/a.    :Wink:  but maybe i gave you or someone else an idea so they can help you further.

cheers.

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## ungenio

I was having the same problem and seem to have figured out a way around it.

The trick for me was to use the aic7xxx_old module instead of the default aic7xxx.

To do this, I had to boot the livecd with "smp nodetect noapic nodhcp".

Then, once booted, I did a "modprobe aic7xxx_old" and "modprobe eepro100" and went from there.

I'm still installing, but so far no problems.

Hope this helps.

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## ohaleck

What exactly is the type of your scsi card? Mine is aic 7896... 

Well, I finally managed to boot the installation from Gentoo 1.4rc4 CD and doscsi detected it right, then I didn't have much time to mess with it but I'll soon have to boot from the hard drive, which is scsi... OK, I'll try and see...

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## sandcrawler

In case anone else has similar problems, using the aic7xxx_old helped me overcome a similar problem on a dell poweredge 1300 running the SMP kernel on 1.4 Live.  The scsi controller in this system is a 7890 using the Dell/Adaptec 2.01 bios.

Later

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## icecube

Thanks for the tip. The aic7xxx_old did the trick. In my case I have an old LG440x motherboard with 2 scsi drives and 1 ata133 drive. I used the following options: smp-nofb nodhcp nodetect. When I tried the previous options with noapic, I got a lot of scsi errors when the system was trying to set the bus. I got this a long time ago when installing RH 7.x and had to be sure I included apci on the boot options line. Thanks again.

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## GreenPea

Just a quick thanks!  I know it has been quite a while since this was posted, but it worked like a charm on an older HP Kayak I have.  :Very Happy: 

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## wolfger

Thanks to this tip, I can find the SCSI drive... unfortunately I can't do anything with it.  After the modprobe aic7xxx_old, I find my drive (linked) at /dev/sg0, but I cannot do anything with it. When I try fdisk /dev/sg0 it hangs.

 :Sad: 

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## Dr_Stein

Trying this on a Sun Fire v60x..

"To do this, I had to boot the livecd with "smp nodetect noapic nodhcp". "

Gets me to "loading smp...." and a few seconds later, nothing but black screen.

Same if I boot and try smp-nofb as well.

I can boot with gentoo-nofb but then cannot get that stupid aic7xxx module to load. UGH.

I hate this machine. =/

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