Topic: SME server 5.0 boot disk

[Julian Weber]

I would like to install SME Server 5.0 on a server with a Mylex Raid Controller.  After agreeing to the liscense it goes through the boot sequence and then tries to install SCSi drivers.  It hangs on the NCR  scsi driver.  I was wondering if there is any way to force it to use a specific driver and not detect the scsi system.  I noticed there is a syslinux config file on the boot disk I created.  Can I pass extra parameters to the kernel using this? Does anyone have any experience with this?  I would really appreciate any help I can get.

[Kelvin]

Julian,

When booting up the setup screen appears asking you to type "accept".

At that point, you can type "accept dd" which tells the setup program to prompt you for a driver disk. You can supply the driver for the Mylex when asked for it. I don't know if the setup program will still probe and hang at NCR though ....

Give this a try and let us know what happens ....


Kelvin

[Julian Weber]

Kelvin,
   I tireid what you said and it did boot off of the boot disk but it still hangs on the NCR SCSI.  Any ideas on how to make it not detect a driver?

Julian

[Kelvin]

Hi Julian,

Hmm.. If your computer did not boot off the boot disk, I would assume either your floppy disk or drive needs attention or your BIOS was set to boot off the HDD or CD-ROM but not the Floppy or the floppy is set to a lower boot priority. Your system HAS to be able to boot off the floppy drive.

Unfortunately, this is the only way I know to get E-Smith to recognise a driver disk for installations.

Let me know how you go.

Kelvin

[Kelvin]

Sorry, brain spasm on my part......

Even when booting via the CD-ROM, you should still be able to enter "accept dd" and supply a driver disk. If, inspite of supplying the correct driver, E-Smith still locks at NCR, I'm afraid I know not how to continue either. Only I can suggest is try disabling some of the options on your Motherboard to see if any of them helps.

Kelvin

[Julian]

Kelvin,
      I did manage to make a boot disk and a driver disk.  It asked me for the driver disk when I typed "accept dd".  It read the floppy drive but then proceded to load the NCR driver.  Is it supposed to prompt me for a driver when it loads the driver disk?  Maybe I made a bad driver disk?  Thanks for your help.

Julian

[Kelvin]

Julian,

I admit it's been a couple of months since I did this and I'm working off my (sometimes unreliable) memory.

After inserting the driver disk, I think e-smith should display a list for you to select your driver from. I'm not sure if e-smith still tries to load its own predefined set of drivers first or not.

Kelvin