[syslinux] Problems booting with SCSI CD (update)

[Theodore Kilgore]

Dear Peter,

Following your suggestion/ I have burned another CD with the
initrd-debug.bin in it. The error messages which occurred still occurred.
There was only one new one, which is inserted in the text below in its
proper place, as well as other, obvious changes like reporting the new
isolinux version. See text below.

(If this is of interest to others on the list, I would think that by
looking at the complete text it is possible to see what the problem is)

Theodore Kilgore


On Fri, 1 Nov 2002, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

> Theodore Kilgore wrote:
> > Peter,
> >
> > Okay, here are the exact error messages and what leads up to them:
> >
> > -------------------------begin-------------------------
> >
> > Adaptec AHA-2940 Ultra/Ultra w BIOS v.1.23
> > (c) 1996 adaptec, Inc. all rights Reserved.
> >
> > Press <Ctrl> <A> for SCSI Select (TM) Utility!
> >
> > * SCSI ID: LUN NUMBER #:# 0:0 - IBM-PCCO DGHS - Drive C: (80h)
> >   SCSI ID: LUN NUMBER #:# 5:0 - MATSHITA CD_ROM CR-506
> >
> > (next line in box)
> > A BOOTABLE CD-ROM IS DETECTED IN YOUR CD-ROM DRIVE...
> >
> > The boot sections on your bootable CD-ROM are:
> > 0. DEFAULT ENTRY
> >
> > * => "Plug and Play" peripheral -- SCSI ID auto-assigned
> >
> > BIOS installed successfully!
> >
> >
The different results should now be clear:

> > ISOLINUX 1.67 2002-02-03

--now reads as
ISOLINUX 2.00 2002-10-25 Copyright (c) 1994-2002 H. Peter Anvin

(one new line appears)
isolinux: Starting up, DL=00

(now the next text is on a new line, otherwise unchanged)
isolinux: Loading spec packet failed, trying to wing it
> > ...
> > isolinux: Failed to locate CD-ROM device; boot failed.
> >
>
> OK... this basically means "I found nothing that looks like a CD-ROM
> device to me."
>
> > -----------------------end boot sequence; nothing further happens--------
> >
> > Further remarks:
> >
> > 1. This was on a Gateway G6-200 Pentium Pro. Same thing happens on an IBM
> > 300GL (model id number 1691) into which we put a SCSI card and CD from one
> > of the (older) Gateways because we wanted to stick that nice 18gig SCSI
> > hard drive in it.
>
> This is because it's the SCSI BIOS that's broken, not the mainboard
> BIOS.  Normally I would suggest check for a BIOS upgrade, but the
> Adaptecs you have don't have flash, and the 1.23 BIOS you have seems to
> be the latest anyway.
>
> > 4. Yes, I can try the "debugging" version if it comes to the need to do
> > that. Why not?
>
> That would be useful.  The more information we can get the better.
>
> > 5. I have looked into the SCSI Select utility. It gives you lots of
> > options to change ID numbers and such, or at least acts like it does. But
> > I don't really know enough about SCSI (or ISOLINUX internals, either) to
> > figure out what might be relevant here.
>
> Unlikely anything is.
>
> > 6. I mentioned it already, but how difficult would it be to do a
> > one-floppy-then-go-directly-to-CD boot sequence? By passing exactly the
> > right magical parameter at the "Boot:" prompt, for example?
>
> It would be unbelievably painful.  It would entail writing a full
> collection of SCSI drivers, for example.  ISOLINUX relies on the El
> Torito BIOS to act as a hardware driver.
>
> 	-hpa
>