Bug 157479

Please be more specific, what kernel messages are getting printed. Does booting with the safe-settings help?

Sorry for that, in between I successfully (more or less) installed a Debian 3.1 on that Computer. But the messages (out of my mind) were more or less like:

- /dev/hdc SANDISK CF xxx 1025MB, DMA 2 (out of BIOS).
  later while trying to access the root file system...
- /dev/hdc2 Timeout, waiting for drive to appear... dma failure "hexcode"...

On Debian 3.1 I had to add manually the "ide=nodma" parameter to the grub menu.lst.

Seams to be a broken BIOS, but nevertheless I should be able to override the dma-settings via kernel-parameter.

If you need more informations, I will retry with SuSE and take a picture
of the screen (as this message does not appear in /var/log/messages).

OK. Reopen the report once you can provide more information. Try using ACPI=off as boot parameter.

ACPI=off does not work either...

Details of boot-process (the ones, I was able to catch):
...
Freeing unused kernel memory: 204k freed
Trying manual resume from /dev/hdc1
Starting udev
Creating devices
Loading ide-disk
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO nodes; override with idebus=xx
Loading via82cxxx
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:07.1
PCI: via IRQ fixup for 0000:00:07.1, from 255 to 0
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
VP_IDE: VIA vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci0000:00:07.1
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xe008-0xe00f, BIOS settings: hdc: DMA, hdd:pio
hdc: SanDisk SDCFB-1024, ATA DISK drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hdc: max request size: 128KiB
hdc: 2001888 sectors (1024 MB) w/1KiB Cache, CHS=1986/16/63, DMA
hdc: cache flushes not supported
 hdc:<4>hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdc: DMA timeout error
hdc: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { Drive Ready SeekComplete DataRequest }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
... and so on

As I wrote above, the BIOS is buggy, there I did disable DMA.
But SuSE 10 does no more respect the kernel-commandline "ide=nodma".
Debian 3.1 reads this parameter and disables DMA, just my 2 cents.

Let's ask the kernel maintainers for a suggestion or comment.

Error in mkinitrd most likely.

Perhaps I can contribute.  I am getting the same messages from a Thinkpad 770Z with a Fujitsu 40 gig hard drive.  Even when doing a safe boot which does:
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda6 vga=normal ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume selinux=0 nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3

The machine does eventually boot but DMA does not work even if I turn it on with HDPARM.  DMA works fine when I boot from a Knoppix 3.7 CD (2.4 kernel).  Hoping SuSE 10.1 fixes this.

This is the DMESG snip from the kernel boot above:

Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
PIIX4: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:07.1
PIIX4: chipset revision 1
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfcf0-0xfcf7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfcf8-0xfcff, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
Probing IDE interface ide0...
input: PS/2 Generic Mouse on isa0060/serio1
hda: FUJITSU MHT2040AT, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 78140160 sectors (40007 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(33)
hda: cache flushes supported
 hda:<4>hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
 hda1 hda2 hda3 <<4>hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
 hda5<4>hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
 hda6<4>hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
 hda7 hda8 >
Probing IDE interface ide1...
hdc: TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-C2002, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hdc: ATAPI 20X DVD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache, DMA
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS on hda6, internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

Have you tested with the latest mkinitrd update?

No response. Closing.