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beelze

Post subject: Efika bootup problems

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:00 pm

Joined:
Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:51 pm
Posts:
11

Hi

Got my Efika today. Want to make my first steps but failing miserably at booting the debian installer from efika.info
I followed the Efika.readme.pdf Howto and red it completely.

My problem is:
OF apparently can't see the files on the usb-stick or harddisk.
I formatted one usb-stick with FAT and put the Debian installer in a subdirectory and in the root of the filesystem.
The same with one harddisk (It has ext2 fs)
Connected both to the Efika and powered it on.
I can use OF as described in the Howto and when I do an "devalias" I get alias hd for the harddisk and hd0 for the stick.
Now I try to list the partitions with "ls hd" and "ls hd0". It won't show me anything. Just repeats the OK prompt.
"ls hd:1" or "ls hd0:1" won't work too.
I did "setenv diag-switch? true" to make everything more verbose, but to no avail.

What am I doing wrong?

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DJBase

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:15 pm

Joined:
Tue Jun 14, 2005 8:30 pm
Posts:
78
Location:
Germany

For me ls hd0:0 worked. I booted from a usb mp3 player.

..:: www.djbase.de ::..

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PurpleAlien

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:16 pm

Genesi

Joined:
Mon Jan 30, 2006 2:28 am
Posts:
409
Location:
Finland

Hi.

Can you boot the debian installer like this:

ok boot hd0:0 di_efika

Best regards,
Johan

Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

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DJBase

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:26 pm

Joined:
Tue Jun 14, 2005 8:30 pm
Posts:
78
Location:
Germany

boot hd0:0 DI_EFIKA worked here, yes. In lower case it doesn't (I guess that a FAT issue).

..:: www.djbase.de ::..

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beelze

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:46 pm

Joined:
Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:51 pm
Posts:
11

Nope. Tried upper and lower case now too. Does not make a difference...
When I try to boot from USB I just always get
"error: error while trying to load or boot"

When I try to boot from HDD the maximum I get is

Code:

ok boot hd:0 di_efika
Boot path: /builtin@F0000000/ata@F0003A00/disk@0,0:0  Boot args: di_efika
################################################################################
#####################error: no filesystem recognized"

I'm lost here.
As I said before the OF won't list me any files on the devices. I repartitioned them both making only one primary partition. FS ist FAT on the Stick and EXT2 on the HDD.

I'm doing it all over serial console. I tried one time with ATI Radeon Card and USB Keyboard plugged in, but it behaves just the same.

When booting OF tells me something about ATA Device not responding. See below

Code:

cpu0: PowerPC,G2 CPUClock 396 Mhz BUSClock 132 Mhz (Version 0x8082,0x2014)
channel 0 unit 0 :   ata | TOSHIBA MK4309MAT                        | G5.01 B 
ATA device not present or not responding
Scanning </builtin@F0000000/usb@F0001000/scsi@1> for SCSI devices
unit 0 lun 0 :  Disk |          | USB DISK Pro     | 3.09 | SCSI-0 removable
Welcome to SmartFirmware(tm) for bplan EFIKA5K2
Version 1.3 (20061107101950)
SmartFirmware(tm) Copyright 1996-2001 by CodeGen, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Pegasos BIOS Extensions Copyright 2001-2006 by bplan GmbH.
All Rights Reserved.
Extended diagnostics are now switched on.
ok devalias
Alias                 Device Path
--------------------------------------------------
ide                   /builtin@F0000000/ata@F0003A00/disk@0,0
hd                    /builtin@F0000000/ata@F0003A00/disk@0,0
scsi                  /builtin@F0000000/usb@F0001000/scsi@1/disk@0,0
hd0                   /builtin@F0000000/usb@F0001000/scsi@1/disk@0,0
eth                   /builtin/ethernet
ok show-scsi
MPC5200 ATA controller:
  Disk |          | TOSHIBA MK4309MA | G5.0 | SCSI-0

USB Storage:
  Disk |          | USB DISK Pro     | 3.09 | SCSI-0 removable

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PurpleAlien

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:57 pm

Genesi

Joined:
Mon Jan 30, 2006 2:28 am
Posts:
409
Location:
Finland

Hi.

Quote:

When booting OF tells me something about ATA Device not responding.

That should be no problem. I have the same thing.

Try to remove the harddrive, and boot just from USB stick.

Best regards,
Johan

Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

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beelze

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:38 pm

Joined:
Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:51 pm
Posts:
11

Ok

Got it to work. Thanks for the hint with uppercase btw.

I tried several devices without an HDD attached to the efika.
128MB USB-Stick with FAT won't work
128MB SD Card in USB Card Reader with FAT won't work
external USB CDROM with ISO9660 won't work
external USB 40 GB HDD with ext2 won't work

But!

USB MP3 Player I lend from my neighbor did the trick.
Archos Gmini XS 202 with FAT32.
It listed me all files and not the partition table when I did an "ls hd" on the MP3 Player device...
Strange.

So I just did
"ok boot hd DI_EFIKA console=ttyPSC0"

I hope I will never ever have to do this again.

Does anyone have an explanation for this behaviour of OF?

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beelze

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:57 pm

Joined:
Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:51 pm
Posts:
11

Darn...

problem still not completely solved.
-Booted Debian Installer from USB MP3 Player
-Installed Debian system
-Copied kernel and modules to system
-Can't boot from harddisk (boot hd:0 boot/kernel_efika root=/dev/sda1)

Efika still won't boot from harddisk. FS is ext2. No additional USB Devices attached.

Code:

ok list-files hd
error: no filesystem recognized
ok list-files hd:0
error: no filesystem recognized
ok list-files hd:1
error: no filesystem recognized

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beelze

Post subject:

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 8:12 pm

Joined:
Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:51 pm
Posts:
11

Seems to work now.

I had to wipe the partition table by overwriting the beginning of the hdd with a bunch of zeroes (dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1) and create a new table with fdisk.
Don't use cfdisk. It does not write proper partition tables for me.

I really can't understand why it does matter if the partition table just gets modified rather than completely wiped...

Just one more thing I can file now into my personal knowledge base aka brain.

Thanks for your support guys!

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ironfist

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:09 am

Joined:
Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:39 am
Posts:
429
Location:
Secure Networks / Sweden

I'm not sure which partition table Debian use but with
Pegasos and EFIKA you should always try using the
Amiga partition table.

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Neko

Post subject:

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:22 am

Site Admin

Joined:
Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:39 am
Posts:
1589
Location:
Alamo Heights, TX

ironfist wrote:

I'm not sure which partition table Debian use but with
Pegasos and EFIKA you should always try using the
Amiga partition table.

Tips, then;

* Make sure you write the front of the disk (at least the first 100 blocks) with zeroes somehow, as otherwise old partition formats can get left there and detection will fail (especially if you have an old disk with an MBR and write an Amiga partition table to it. The MBR will not be properly overwritten as the Amiga partition block does NOT have to be in the same place as the MBR is)

* use GNU parted; not fdisk, not cfdisk, not mac-fdisk, not amiga-fdisk, but GNU parted.

* use "msdos" or "amiga" partition table formats; BSD partitioning may also work but with quirks. Amiga RigidDiskBlock is the best supported, though, and is more flexible to create/manage partitions anyway.

* filesystems supported would be ext2 (please try not to use ext3 with the firmware, journalling and firmware do not mix), Amiga FFS, SFS, PFS2 and Windows FAT12/16/32. If necessary create a seperate partition as ext2 and mount it as /boot using your Linux installer.

Matt Sealey, Genesi USA Inc.
Product Development Analyst

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czp

Post subject:

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 10:33 am

Joined:
Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:41 am
Posts:
1063

ironfist wrote:

I'm not sure which partition table Debian use but with
Pegasos and EFIKA you should always try using the
Amiga partition table.

It used DOS partition table instead of Amiga, when I tried to install Debian on an empty HDD. So I booted Gentoo over the network, compiled parted and used it to create an Amiga partition table and all the partitions.

CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

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lupus

Post subject: problem with harddisk/partition table

Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 12:31 pm

Joined:
Sun Oct 08, 2006 8:10 am
Posts:
3

Hello, I've a similar problem with my harddisk.
Neither msdos partition table nor amiga partition table worked.
When I type "show-scsi" I can see the name of the harddisk(SAMSUNG HM100JC) and in devalias its linked to hd or ide.
But if i type "ls hd" i get the following error:
"ATA device not present or not responding"

Can anyone help me?

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ironfist

Post subject:

Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 1:14 pm

Joined:
Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:39 am
Posts:
429
Location:
Secure Networks / Sweden

ls /ata

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lupus

Post subject:

Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:59 pm

Joined:
Sun Oct 08, 2006 8:10 am
Posts:
3

That just results in:

ok ls /ata
disk@0,0
bestcomm-task
ok ls /ata/disk@0,0
ATA device not present or not responding

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