FAQ: ProLiant SMP Smart Array kernel hangs (mounting root from /dev/idad0s1a ...)

Mon Oct 6 12:50:00 PDT 2003

This is for the record, so that hopefully future seekers can find this
solution on Google more easily. If the handbook maintainers are 
listening (or someone who can forward this to them) please put it 
into the handbook as this can be super frustrating and can make
people defect over to Linux immediately.

Symptom: 

Older ProLiant (e.g. ProLiant 1600) after all kernel hardware 
is initialized hangs after the message:

mounting root from /dev/idad0s1a

when (and only when) the SMP kernel is used. This happens on 
true for 4.8-RELEASE but likely on other 4.x releases as well.

If you don't even get this far and if the kernel hangs much earlier
after saying something about SMP and APIC for the first time, this 
solution will also help.

Solution: 

Set Operating System to Windows 2000 and set APIC mode to 
"Full Table - Mapped" mode. 

Procedure:

Either from the  system configuration utility partition 
or from the system configuration utility diskettes (only need the 
first 2 of 4 diskettes) start the system configuration.

On the main menu hit CTRL-A to enable "Advanced Mode".

Go into system configuration, select Windows 2000 as the operating
system. Then scroll down (hit pg-down twice) to get to the advanced
configuration. The last item says APIC mode. Set that to 
Full Table - Mapped. Save settings and reboot. That should do it.

Thanks to Danny Carroll for figuring this all out and holding 
my hand to reproduce it.