NASLite Network Attached Storage

I know I'm probably SOL and will need to stay at 2.1, but I'm hoping to get a little more info on the halt.

It boots from USB (using a floppy kicker), decompresses, goes through the driver section (PASS/FAIL) and hangs on the element <AFTER> Driver ide_core [DONE] with Probing.......

i.e.

Driver ide_core [DONE]
Probing.....

Can someone give me an idea what CORE3 isn't happy with?

Reset your BIOS to factory defaults and give it a go again.

Also turn off everything not needed by NL like the serial ports, parallel port, sound, etc.

Turn of ACPI as well and see if it boots then.

Mike

Thanks Mike, but do you think it's really my BIOS if 2.1 works like a charm? BTW - I've reset the BIOS and it still happens, although I haven't starting disabling things yet.

EDIT: I thought it was hung, but it must have been retrying. Almost every prompt afterwards took forever to display any information, seeing such errors as "interrupt failure". Eventually (probably 15-20 minutes later) I got a message stating there was no configuration saving device and then it shut down. It seemed like it couldn't find anything - "floppy controller not found", etc.

My initial thought is that somewhere between the floppy kicker and the initial read of the USB install, it somehow loses connection with the USB key and everything fails after that.

How can I get a printout of the log if Naslite loses communication with the USB key? Is there anything else I can try?

This is an Intel 1.8GHz on an Asus P4S333 (not overclocked) 1GB of RAM with the Naslite USB running off a 4-port USB2.0 PCI card, running 4x500GB PATA drives. A kicker is used because the mobo doesn't support booting from USB. I've been using this setup for years and would like to start using this box as a media server.

Thanks.

Use a CF card in an ATA adaptor or just load it on the first HDD, problem solved. Be sure and back up your data first if the drive has data you want to keep.

Mike

Try turning USB 2.0 off.

Ralph, you're the man! Turning off USB in the BIOS worked. I also turned off other unnecessary services like onboard audio, etc. Theoretically it could have been an IRQ problem but I would assume that would have turned up in NL 2.1.

Afterwards I ran into a comedy of errors:

NL M2 1.61 booted up fine with the standard errors because it wasn't licensed. I entered the code, saved the config, rebooted, and now my floppy kicker decided to hang after the DOS USB driver loaded. At that point I tried a few things, but ultimately it happened to be a LOGICAL problem on the floppy. I tried making another using a DOS boot disk, but of course that didn't work. After hunting down NL 2.04 with the kicker utility on it and making another (on the same diskette). There goes about two hours out the window.... ah, it was worth it in the end.

Thanks for all your help.

LOOSE the floppy!

The CF boot is the best way I have found to boot the machine. No floppy, No CDROM, NoUSB needed. Simple and clean.

Mike

mikeiver1, I couldn't agree more. Most of my time was spent digging an old floppy drive out, hooking it up on my primary PC, turning it on in the BIOS, etc. What a hassle. I think I'll eventually back up everything on DISK-0 and install to hdd. I assume NL doesn't assign a partition or does it create another disk?

I don't think the CF/ATA solution would work for me because doesn't it take up an ATA channel? I need all four of my channels!

Yep, the CF does need an ATA channel but you could get a card like the 3Ware 7500 with 8 ATA channels and have your cake and eat it too.

The reason I don't like the HDD install is that if that drive fails you loose it all, with the CF you are more covered so to speak.

Mike

Great point.