[WBEL-users] IDE DMA during install

[Sean Dogar]

Trying to install WBEL4.  The machine in question is a dual P-II 400mhz 
machine, 768 MB RAM, Intel 440BX chipset motherboard.  I've added an 
Adaptec 1205SA SATA controller, with a Western Digital 160GB SATA drive 
and a Plextor SATA DVD burner on that card.  I also have a 20x Pioneer 
CD-ROM connected to the secondary on-board IDE controller, as the 
Adaptec card doesn't appear to like bootable CD-ROM devices (but will 
apparently support booting from the hard disk). 

I throw the WBEL 4 disc 1 into the CDROM that is connected to the 
parallel ATA controller on the motherboard.  The ISOLINUX boot screen 
comes up without a hitch, and when I hit return or specify a text based 
install, ISOLINUX does it's thing and speedily loads the kernel and 
initrd.  The kernel boots, and everything is cool until begins 
enumerating devices on the on-board IDE controller.  It sees the CDROM 
as hdc, which I would expect.  But it shows the I/O mode as "DMA" vice 
"pio," and I don't believe that's a correct setting for this unit.  
Right after that message comes up, the system slows down to mollases.  
In virtual console #4, I then begin to constantly get "hdc: lost 
interrupt" messages.  The system still tries to do its thing and one 
time, I actually got to the part of anaconda that asks for the type of 
keyboard and the install method.  Sometimes, I've waited almost an hour 
for it to be able to get meaningful data from the CDROM and it just 
can't do it. 

I've tried to get around this by adding "ide=nodma" to the boot line.  
I've tried "linux ide=nodma" and "linux text ide=nodma"  I have also 
tried "hdc=nodma."  I've also tried moving the CDROM over to the primary 
controller.  Same story, only this time the CDROM is hda instead of hdc. 

I'm pretty sure that this DMA mode mismatch is my problem.  I don't 
think the drive supports that access mode.  I thought that the default 
behavior for Redhat in the past was to leave DMA disabled by default, 
but I guess this must have changed at some point. 

So I guess my questions are:

1.  Is there a way to tell the kernel at boot that you don't want IDE 
DMA turned on?  I've tried "ide=nodma" which doesn't appear to work.

2.  If not, how much trouble is it to mount the WBEL4 disc 1 iso, and 
replace the kernel with one I've compiled that won't have IDE DMA 
support enabled by default, and then reburn the disc? 

-Sean