Cobalt Raq 4 OS restoration problems after net-booting restore CD
Kralizec Craig
Hi everyone,
I have succeeded in getting an OS restore CD for my Cobalt Raq 4 to
net-boot my currently-offline Raq4 via a net-connected PC, and I solved
one problem surrounding a disk drive for which the net-booted kernel would
not accept the parameters of when the drive was probed for it's specs. I
have a console connection to my SB1000 so I can log all the console
messages that the Raq4 produces.
However there's still a problem I am not able to figure out yet and that
is that when the setup script runs to create the partitions on the
replacement disk, 'mke2fs' appears to give errors about unknown drive
specifications each time it's run and the partitions don't mount
read/write when the script gets set up to start trying to copy over
software packages from the host PC.
Also, I noticed in the logs some messages about incorrect kernel version
but that might be a result of the disk partitions not mounting read/write.
Has anyone come across this sort of problem when attempting to do a new OS
installation for a Cobalt x86-based web server appliance, and how did you
solve it?
The first disk I tried to use is a brand new Seagate ST380215A (Barracuda
7200.10 - 80 gb), and the drive I'm trying at the moment is a used Western
Digital 80 gb ide drive that I found in some spare parts boxes. The
Seagate disk gives invalid (according to the kernel) parameters when the
net-loaded kernel first boots up to run the install process. The WD drive
gives good parameters. Both disks appear to give the same problems though
later on in the process so I suspect there's something else going on that
I haven't worked out yet.
The particular OS restore CD I'm using is an upgraded one produced by
Zeffie, so I wonder if that is the problem? Perhaps there is some
un-tested condition that is resulting in my particular Raq4 to not do the
install steps properly. If anyone has tried OS restoration using restore
CD's from other vendors (Raqport, CobaltSupport, the original Sun/Cobalt
one, etc.) have you seen the problem when using those?
One thing I will do to be absolutely sure is re-burn the iso image for
Zeffie's OS restore CD onto another new CD-R later today and give that a
go just in case something didn't work right when I burnt the first CD-R.
Craig.
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