Driver disk questions

[Paul Howarth]

On Mon, 2006-08-07 at 22:21 -0500, Jay Cliburn wrote:
> Jay Cliburn wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 08:38:28AM +0100, Paul Howarth wrote:
> >> However, it is possible to manually load the driver if all you have is
> >> the .ko file. See for example:
> >>
> >> http://www.keffective.com/mvsata/
> > 
> > Thanks for this.  I ran across it early in my information search, but I 
> > didn't realize its significance until just now with your comment.  I'll 
> > try this method this evening when I get home.
> 
> The method in the referenced link works, at least for me.  I had to copy 
> libata.ko and sata_via.ko to a floppy, then follow the procedure in the 
> link and modprobe libata and sata_via from the floppy.  This enabled the 
> kernel to see my sata drive long enough to install FC5.  (Also tried it 
> with FC6T2 and it worked.)
> 
> Unfortunately, on the reboot following installation I encountered a 
> kernel panic very early on when /dev/VolGroup00 couldn't be found.  This 
> happened for both FC5 and FC6T2.

I think that the reason for this is that the updated module has not
actually been installed on the target system (this issue would not have
happened with a "real" driver disk btw). So the initrd used to boot the
system was made with the original modules, which don't work with your
hardware. You may be able to fix this by booting the rescue CD using
your custom module, copying your custom module on to the target system
in place of the original module, then rebuilding the initrd.

You will of course need to fix the initrd for any kernel updates you
install in the same way until your patch is included in a Fedora kernel
(via upstream).

Paul.