For those that are unable to sleep until this issue is resolved, the 2.4.26 kernel build (with IDE DMA) seemed to clear up this issue.  :)

Thanks,

Josh

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 23:39:16 -0500
Josh Trutwin <josh at trutwins.homeip.net> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I have this doofy Cobalt Raq4 hand-me-down that I managed to get to
> run Debian woody (what a huge pain, but it works).  Currently my
> kernel is 2.4.20.
> 
> I just bought at 250 GB IDE hard drive as this is my backup "server"
> but when booting with the new drive the kernel hangs during the
> Partition Check.  Investigation on google says that this can be
> averted using ide=nodma as a kernel boot parameter.  
> 
> Ok, so this Cobalt thing doesn't use lilo/silo/grub whatever, it
> uses a special BIOS that ignores the MBR and just loads the kernel
> at bootup without the option to pass any boot parameters except
> through the Cobalt ROM boot menu (set_params "ide=nodma" - which
> does indeed solve the hang), but that setting doesn't stick so it
> has to be done EVERY TIME the machine is booted and since it's
> headless I'd need to have a serial line connected to this dang thing
> all the time.  
> 
> So, I was thinking of re-building the kernel, which I've done a few
> times, but I do not know is there a way to build the kernel and have
> it always load with a set of custom boot parameters?  Remember - no
> lilo/grub etc. - just loads the kernel.  Or I suppose I could
> recompile the kernel w/o IDE DMA?  I wonder how this thing would
> handle 2.6.x?
> 
> Thx,
> 
> Josh

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