[ping - need added help/suggestions] Re: Gutsy Upgrade problem

[Rick Knight]

NoOp wrote:
> On 04/02/2008 09:55 AM, Rick Knight wrote:
>
>   
>> NoOp,
>>
>> When I ran gparted and posted the results here, I saw that GRUB and my 
>> boot partition were not where they should have been (or where I thought 
>> they were). I decided last night to correct this and see if it would 
>> solve my Gutsy problem. I moved GRUB and everything in my /boot folder 
>> on /dev/hda5 to /dev/hda2, deleted the /boot folder on /dev/hda5 and 
>> then ran update-grub and then grub ...
>>
>> sudo grub
>> grub> setup (hd0)
>> find /grub/stage1
>>
>> (hd0,1)
>> grub> boot (hd0,1)
>>
>> quit
>>     
>
> You need to use the root command to tell it where root is:
>
> grub> root (hd0,1)
>
> Or perhaps you mean root instead of boot? Either way, I _think_ it has
> to go before the setup command (not sure if if makes a difference).
>
> Also, I'd recommend you put your /etc/initramfs-tools/modules back to
> what is was before. From your first post:
>
> /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
> and added these lines (from a post at Launchpad)...
>
> # added for support of older, standard hdx drives
> piix
> ide_generic
> ide_cd
> ide_disk
>
> # black-list bad driver
> ata_piix
>
> # prevent unnecessary modules from loading (optional)
> blacklist ata_generic
> blacklist libata
> blacklist scsi_mod
>
>   
I've cleaned everything up and put it back to the upgrade state.
>> I also modified /etc/fstab to reflect the change to the boot partition 
>> and to make sure only my /boot and / and swap partitions were listed. I 
>> used sudo blkid /dev/hda2 to get the ID for the new /boot partition and 
>> made sure all the UUIDs in fstab and menu.lst matched. I also changed 
>> menu.lst to recognize (hd0,1) as the boot device.
>>
>> I rebooted, first into my Feisty kernel. It worked fine. I rebooted into 
>> the Gutsy kernel. Same errors as before. The drives are not being 
>> created under the 2.6.22-14-generic kernel. Under Feisty the drives are 
>> created as /dev/hdxn with UUIDs as symbolic links to /dev/hdxn.
>>
>> I read this on the Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailling list...
>>
>> "Starting from Gutsy, the old IDE chipset drivers are no longer included 
>> in the kernel package. The libata based drivers, being cleaner and 
>> easier to maintain, have taken the places of the old drivers.
>>
>> However, external CD writers don't work with the new libata based IDE drivers. Please see bug report #109211 <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/109211> for details. Considering that external CD/DVD writers are widely used hardware, I suggest keep the old IDE drivers until this bug is fixed, so that users can still use their external CD/DVD writers in Ubuntu after very little manual configuration. They should not conflict with anything if not loaded"
>>
>> I realize the author is talking about external CD-ROM drives, but could 
>> this be what I'm running into? Would I be able to fix my issue by 
>> building a new kernel with support for the older IDE drivers? I have an 
>> older Soyo motherboard with a Via chipset. Maybe my chipset is not 
>> compatible with the newer SATA drivers.
>>     
>
> I run stuff that is over 8 years old, and the only problem that I've had
> with a CD-ROM was an old Mitsumi drive. But that was in Feisty:
>   
I too have some very old hardware running new Slackware distros, but 
they don't have the same chipsets
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/99800
>
>   
>> (typing this from memory so I may not be totally accurate with the 
>> commands I  ran last night)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Rick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>   
After doing a lot of comparing between my desktop at work, my notebook 
and my desktop at home, I'm beginning to think that the problem is the 
chipset in my desktop at home is not supported by libata. The 
motherboard in the PC is about 4 years old and has a Via VT82C568A/B, 
VT82C686A/B, VT823x/A/C chipset. When I boot the Feisty kernel, libata 
and ata_generic are being loaded but are not being used...

$ lsmod | grep ata
ata_generic            9902   0
libata                     125720 ata_generic
scsi_mod                142348 libata,sg,st,aic7xxx,scsi_transport_spi

This tells me that libata is being using by ata_generic, but ata_generic 
isn't being used.

Also, lsmod shows that ide_disk is being used...

$ lsmod | grep ide
ide_cd                       32672  0
cdrom                       37664  1 ide_cd
ide_disk                    17024  5

I think this tells me that this kernel is using IDE_DISK and not 
ATA_GENERIC. Neither my desktop PC at work nor my notebook PC load the 
IDE_DISK. They both use ATA_PIIX. I've looked for a Via ATA module in 
the kernel source, but all I can find is SATA_VIA and this module is 
installed but doesn't seem to work  (I don't have serial ata drives).

Am I correct in this? If I am correct, how can I fix this problem? Is 
there a Via ata driver I'm not seeing?

Thanks,
Rick