Loading Puppy from HD: "Error waiting for DMA"

[dboyt]

Here are the steps I've taken
(1) [WinXP machine] burned Puppy 1.05 to a CD
(2) [old machine] reformatted my HD using a Win98 boot floppy (FAT16?)
(3) [old machine] copied the necessary files (vmlinuz, etc.) from the CD to the HD
(4) [WinXP machine] used boot2pup.img to create a boot floppy
(5) [old machine] put the floppy in, rebooted, and got the following message
Partition check:
hda:<4>hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
hda: error waiting for DMA

Now the machine's just sitting there with a blinking cursor...

Any ideas???

Thanks,

[Ian]

Could you get a Win98 startup floppy and format your partition as FAT32 and try again.

[dboyt]

I ran a DOS utility called chkdrive and it says the cluster size on the drive is 4K which, if I read things right, means the drive was already formatted as FAT32.

I've had this problem with many Linux distros. Sometimes the LiveCD works fine, but I get the error when I try to install. Other times even the LiveCD won't work because of this DMA problem, which is what I'm running into with Puppy.

Thanks,

[Bruce B]

What you probably have to do is enter some kernel parameters, primarily ide=nodma

I don't know if 1.05 CD gives you this option. If it doesn't there are some work arounds. You could run it from the hard disk and install a boot manger where you can control the kernel parameters.

Or remaster the CD which is not simple.

If your BIOS has DMA support maybe you could try turning it off, I don't know if it will work, but it's not too hard to try.

[Guest]

What you probably have to do is enter some kernel parameters, primarily ide=nodma

I don't know if 1.05 CD gives you this option.

If it does not, might this be available in the next release of Puppy?

[Bruce B]

What you probably have to do is enter some kernel parameters, primarily ide=nodma

I don't know if 1.05 CD gives you this option.

If it does not, might this be available in the next release of Puppy?

Who knows? I actually use the ide=nodma option, it's not a problem, because Puppy and the booting process are all on the hard drive. And I control the kernel arguments.