[WBEL-users] Stop the Hardware Check

John Hinton webmaster@ew3d.com
Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:33:20 -0400


bishop wrote:

> John,
>
> In the lab, we usually turn ogg the USB on the 1600/1850 line, and 
> that helps with a lot of OS installs.  Something in the CPQ USB stuff 
> fools the HW detection.  The NCR/LSI SCSI shoudl go in fine;  never 
> had a problem with it, not in every RH since 6.0.
>
> Lemme know if you can turn off the uSB, and if it affects it at all.
>
>  - bish
>
> John Hinton wrote:

First, I only started hitting this issue with RH 7.3 I think?... for 
sure not 7.2 and it might have been rh8 or rh9 where it started? To get 
around it once, I did the install on a 3000R and moved the drives to the 
1850 and that worked!! :) mother of invention.......

In SmartStart (5.1), there are no references to USB as this machine has 
no USB (maybe a later SmartStart would have the option?). I have updated 
to the latest BIOS on this machine. Previously, on other 1850s, I had 
always done the install with linux nousb, and the install worked. This 
is however a dual 600 1850 with Ultra 2 scsi, which makes it one of the 
last made and I kept hitting snags.

I also did linux nousb nousbstorage and again the install went fine... 
but the system first would hang on kudzu during first boot... turned off 
kudzu via single mode and it hung just after detecting the mouse on 
startup. I also noticed that during startup, there was a lot of USB 
stuff being loaded... one area showed failure and it went by fast on the 
screen, but in the many reboots it seemed to refer to USB storage.

On first bootup, it also loaded USB keyboard and mouse, even though I 
had done the linux nousb install. So, it seems that this switch only 
works through the installation OS loadup, but does not actually affect 
what gets installed or configured.

So, since I had no SCSI devices on the two onboard SCSI ports, I figured 
what the heck and turned them off.... Everything worked fine from there. 
I wish I had tried an install without the nousb, but I bet it would have 
worked after turning these off. Also, 'IF' there were devices on these 
ports, I bet it would have correctly identified them as drives and not 
had snags. I do have another one of these units to set up, except it is 
a bit older as it is a dual 550, but will try some things with it.

Anyway... seems I was the first to discover the nousb thing some time 
back on bugzilla.. and reported the cure to after redhat could come up 
with nothing... and have been just happily doing the installs... and 
then... boom!! This 'newest' to me box suddenly had all sorts of problems.

Hope this was a good answer to your question. Perhaps you have some 
input about later versions of SmartStart?

Best,
John Hinton