rh9 wont boot past decompressing kernel stage

[Chris W. Parker]

hello.

i've been having some very strange problems with a server of mine
lately. i'm not sure if it's a hardware or software problem.

the first time i had a problem was last week. i tried to login to the
server via ssh but nothing happened. after some investigation i was able
to get the machine to boot again using the 'no-hlt' option. i.e. 'linux
no-hlt'.

so it stays up for a few days* and i try to login to it again today and
i am again presented with a dead-in-the-water server. this server has 4
hd's with an adaptec 39160 scsi controller and is using software raid.
this time things do not look promising. :(

once i rebooted the system it stopped at the very beginning of loading
the os. the part *right* after it decompresses the kernel. i tried
booting with my boot disk (that i made when i installed the system) and
it got as far as "decompressing vmlinuz..........." and then stopped.

i then attempted reboot after reboot trying different things and it
seemed to slowly get worse. at one point it said the CPU had changed and
that i need to go into CMOS and detect it and then save on exit. well it
wouldn't even go into CMOS.

so at first i thought it might be a software thing, but then all this
crazy stuff leads me to believe it's a hardware thing, but i have no
idea what. oh btw, there are four (or maybe there are only three) small,
flat, square leds right next to the pci slot where the scsi controller
is and they are all red. whereas in the past i've seen them
green/yellow.

i know this is pretty vague but i really dont know how to troubleshoot
something like this so i'm hoping that with some extra brains i'll be
able to find a solution.

the most important thing is that i get the data off the harddrives.



thanks,
chris.