Re: bootloader hangs on IBM x306 w/2 SATA disks

["John D. Baker" <jdbaker%mylinuxisp.com@localhost>]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2017 20:36:57 -0400 (EDT), Mouse
<mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost> wrote:

> > Check the BIOS settings, especially if the 40G disk is PATA instead

Both disks are SATA.  For the 1U chassis, the x306 board has only 2 SATA
ports populated (of 4 possible).  It also has a PATA interface for the
CD drive.

Dropping into BIOS setup was the first thing I did after powering up
the machine with the second drive installed.  It showed each disk
plugged into the expected port.  (There was some confusion before I
realized the BIOS enumerates from 0 but the planar silkscreen enumerates
from 1 and the BIOS shows both designations.)

The system uses "piixide(4)".  Channel 0 is implemented as the PATA
interface and channel 1 handles the SATA ports.

A couple of oddities:  The BIOS hard-disk boot order selection defaulted
to the disk on the second SATA port first.  Also, although there are
only the two disks, one of them shows up twice in the hard-disk order
selection.  (I forget now whether the behavior followed the disk or the
port to which it was attached.)

> > Another thing to try is just straight-up waiting.  I think ATA has
> > a 30-second timeout at some points, which is a loooong time when

I let it sit for over an hour with no progress.

> > I'll see if a bootable CD using some other bootloader has any
> > trouble.

> If my guess above is right, it'll either (a) not work at all because
> the CD is behind the confused hardware or (b) work like PXE booting:
> kernel loads and wedges trying to access the disks.

I booted a gPartEd-live CD which uses ISOLinux.  It got as far as the
primary bootloader, splashscreen, and menu.  After that the screen went
black with only a blinking underline cursor in the upper left corner.
This is the same behavior as the NetBSD MBR Boot on the disks.

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