SCSI Install

[Charles Steinkuehler]

Damon wrote:
> Damon here again...
> HP NetSetver 5/100 lm with the adaptec eisa scsi controller card...
> 
> i went out and bought RH8. i am attempting to install with an ide cdrom 
> to scsi hard drives.
> new problem though! it appears to recognize the scsi card using the 
> aic7xxx.o --- yea!. but the alt+f3 screen says failed to 
> insert /tmp/aic7xxx.o
> so i went into alt+F2 and it says:
> <adapter>foundd at eisa slot 7
> bla bla bla
> unable to handle kernel null pointer deference at virtual address 
> 00000040
> 
> if anyone can help please call me at 816-519-5373
> or email... thanks 
> still a scsi moron
> damon

You're not a SCSI moron, you're just unlucky.

I may have run into pretty much the same issue you're having when I 
tried to do a RH install to a 486 system with an Adaptec VLB SCSI card.

There was a period of time when the Adaptec driver in the kernel was 
*BROKEN* for the older non-PCI cards (at least my VLB card, and IIRC the 
EISA cards too).  This didn't get recognized right away, but it *DID* 
eventually get fixed.  Saddly, these problems crop up again from time to 
time (I guess not many folks testing the latest Adaptec drivers are 
running VLB or EISA cards :-/ ), and I think the kernel that gets used 
on the install disks might have this sort of problem (note the kernel 
used to boot and run the installer is *NOT* the same kernel you wind up 
running with once everything is installed...typically the installer 
kernel is many versions older and compiled with much different options).

I think I was able to work around my problem by downloading a driver 
disk with the latest (at the time) aic7xxx driver from one of the 
personal pages at RedHat, which got me to where I could install (once 
the install completed, the driver installed "out of the box" worked 
fine, it was just the installer kernel that had a problem).  A quick 
search for "adaptec scsi install", or just "aic7xxx" brings up several 
relevant bugs on the RH bugzilla site.

I'd personally start trying a few different device driver disks...here 
might be a good place to start:
http://people.redhat.com/dledford/

-- 
Charles Steinkuehler
charles at steinkuehler.net