CDROM Boot Hangs But Only Under 6.x

[Tim Daneliuk]

illoai at gmail.com wrote:
> On 25/12/2007, Tim Daneliuk <tundra at tundraware.com> wrote:
>> I am building a new server out of both older and brand new
>> components.  It is based on a Pentium D 925 and ABIT LG-95Z
>> mobo.  The DVD-RW is a Lite-On about a year old with very
>> low hours on it.
>>
>> So ... here's a fun one:  I can boot and install FreeBSD 4.x (CD)
>> or Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux Desktop 10 SP1 (DVD) via the
>> DVD.  But attempting to do this with 6.x (I have tried 6.2R and
>> 6.3-PRE disk #1) causes a hang during boot.  The loader gets
>> as far as showing the vertical bar that ordinarily "spins"
>> to show intitial kernel loading progress and the the machine
>> just sits there.  There is some further activity on the optical
>> drive at this point and then the cursor sort of jumps around a bit.
>>
>> I've not yet tried swapping the optical drive out - though I doubt
>> this is the problem since I can load the other OSs.  I've tried
>> removing and moving memory sticks in case this is a flakey
>> memory problem - no change.  I've tried removing the only
>> two cards in the machine: 3COM 905C-TX and an Adaptec 2940UW -
>> no change.
>>
>> I have one last ditch thing I will try later tonight which is
>> to force the DVD IDE port into PIO mode and out of DMA mode.
>> But that's it.  I am stumped.  Ideas anyone?
>>
> 
> If it is not hardware, check your bios settings (and mayhap
> set back to default or very conservative) (of which the PIO
> trick may work).



I just swapped out the optical drive with a CD-RW - exact same
symptoms.  Fiddling w/BIOS, seems to make no difference, though
I am still poking at it.  I am utterly lost - never seen
very standard hardware like this that FreeBSD could/would not
boot and run on ...



-- 
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Tim Daneliuk     tundra at tundraware.com
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