Suse 10 Installation Problems

I've always had problems with Seagate drives, like I did a few weeks ago installing SuSE 10.  I'll bet if you switch to one of the WDs as the root drive it will go smooth.

I'd also have to recommend 3Ware RAID cards I put two of them in a 1.8TB NAS I build about 4 years ago and I had one problem, which wasn't 3Ware's fault and they helped me figure out what was wrong, although support isn't speedy, it's free.  Those cards are still running today and even after several disk failures (IDEs) I never lost any data using RAID-5.

Good Luck

I'll have to try swapping out of video cards and see what happens there.  I'll also try removing the seagate drive out of the picture and see how that goes.  As for the RAID card, 3ware was my first choice; however, I need a PCIe card and they only have PCI-X cards available at the moment.  I was told they are supposed to be coming out with a PCIe-based card in April but nothing definitive.  I then looked at the Rocketraid cards but found they are actually softraid, which more or less eliminated them.  My only option at the moment for true hardware raid until / if 3ware comes out with a PCIe card is Areca.  Unfortunately, they are also a tad more than the other options but when your options are limited, not much choice.  More updates to come once I try out the suggestions.

I've seen these sort of issues when the RAM isn't seated correctly or is damaged. Check that out also !! Boot of the SUSE install DVD and select memtest of the boot menu.

I picked up a plain old vanilla PCI video card yesterday and will see if that makes any difference. Will also try the the memory test as well.  All new hardware here so hope I don't have any bad RAM although I have a lifetime warranty on it at least.  FWIW, I'm able to install Windows w/out any issues.

>> FWIW, I'm able to install Windows w/out any issues.

In that case, dare to say so, but pointer is going in direction
of "hardware incompatibility".  Most hardware is supported by the Linux kernel these days, but
still some is not. See yourself:

http://hardwaredb.suse.de/searchForm.php

I'm not sure if you gave exact specification of all your hardware, but already when I
try to finds your mobo in the Suse supported hardware database, I end up receiving
no results. This would also explain why there is even trouble with other distributions.
To be absolutely sure though, it would be best to use your installation support and
confront Novell Suse Linux support center with the issue.

I did search their database as well and did not find my mobo there; however, their HCL (and those of other vendors in general) is more of a "we have tested / know our product works with this hardware" but offer no guarantees otherwise.  I've read of numerous problems with PCIe graphics card so holding up out a plain old vanilla PCI graphics card will do the trick.  Will know soon enough as I plan on installing it this evening

By using a plain old vanilla PCI-based video card, I got past the blank screen problems as I was able to run a normal install with both the 32 and 64-bit versions.  Unfortunately, my system still hung up during installation.  I removed the Seagate drive from the equation and still no luck there either.  I recently burned Fedora Core 5 so I might give that a go as I was also able to boot that unlike previously.  Not holding out hope though.  Any other suggestions, etc would be appreciated.

Now the question is, where exactly does it hang during installation & what kind of error messages do you get ?

Did you try installation with 'noauto' , 'acpi = off', or other options ?
I remember that I had trouble, which only did solve out starting the installation with
# linux noauto
at the installation boot prompt.

Did you do a memory test ?

There is so many areas, where some erratic behaviour could be triggered . . . & . . . where trouble shooting may come in effective:

- hardware defects
- BIOS settings
- boot/kernel parameters
- faulty installation media
- incompabilities  
. . . .
. . . .

The "hanging" occurs shortly after the partitioning / formatting finishes and the actual OS install begins.  I would say within about 1 minute if that from when the OS install itself begins.  I see no error messages at all -- the system simply locks up.  Yes, I did perform a memory test and no problems.  I have tried installations with ACPI disabled, safe settings, and even text mode -- all resulted in an eventual hang.

All this said, I believe I may have isolated the problem.  I disconnected all my SATAII drives and went through the install with just the IDE drive. I chose all the defaults (for partitions / OS components) and let it go.  After close to 30 minutes, it was still going strong and by far the longest the install has gone.  At that point, I went ahead and aborted since I wanted to test an install with my custom partitioning / selection of OS components.  At this point though, it seems the SATAII drives are the issue or at least one of them anyhow.  I'll have to try reconnecting individually to see if it's an issue with just one or in general.  Whatever the case, why would the SATA drives be an issue and more importantly, is there any way to work around this?  I could certainly perform the install with those drives disconnected and reconnect them afterwards but could I easily setup RAID (hardware or via the OS / mobo itself) after this point?  Another pressing issue would be upgrades as I certainly wouldn't want to be disconnecting my SATA disks every time I do an upgrade.

If you type "SATA RAID SUSE 10.0 problems" into the search mask of your favourite Search engine, then you'll be
getting lots of interesting hits related to your problem. I didn't go through them all . . . : )  (looks like some work left for you ; ))
Anyway, as a quick summary from my own research I'd say:

a) Unless you get a very good hardware RAID controller, you likely may run into problems, since
    most controllers are said to provide for hardware RAID but in fact require some additional software setup to function properly.
    Problem is, that the "real" and good hardware RAID controllers are very costly.

b) I would, in your case, not think of any hardware RAID at all and completely go for a SOFT RAID setup with SUSE 10.0
    In the disk partitioning section of your installation there is an option to do this, if you set it up manually there. All RAID levels
    are available as Softraid with SUSE 6 and it should work like a charm.

I think we came to the point.

I did try setting up RAID during the Suse 10 setup; unfortunately, my darn system still locked up almost immediately after the OS install began!  If I could get things working with that, I'd at least try it to see what the peformance hit was going to be.  I'd also have no problems dishing out a few hundred for a true hardware raid solution but want to see at least see some evidence of success otherwise with an install before going down that path.

OK, one problem I have here now: Personally I have no experience with setting up SATA
and hard RAID under Linux, so right now I can only point you to relevant information & ask
you to work your way through it. You already got to the point where you could nail down the
problem being situated round the SATA disk. Well done. One more thing that caught my attention
is:

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Serial_ATA

There is this thing with setting up SATA in parallele SATA compatibility mode
or in native mode. Both said not to be a problem in SUSE 10.0 but I have attention on this
line where it says something about "telling BIOS which mode to use". So I'd check mobo manual
and BIOS settings for your machine to see if anything is, that catches your attention, how about that ?

Another thing to try:

Try an installation with the "noprobe" command passing to kernel, please (if you haven't done already):

# linux noprobe

An other thing: During installation you can access text console with <ctrl> <alt> <f1> up to <f7>
Go to a console where you can see the installation messages being displayed. It still would be interesting to
know, at which line it stops.

I'll give your suggestions (particularly the no probe) a try and post some feedback.  FWIW, in the BIOS, if I set the RAID BIOS to disabled, I have two options -- Emulated PATA Mode or AHCI mode.   Lockups occur with either setting / at some point with the SATA disks connected.

While the responses here were great, it turns out my problem was not making use of the EZ_PLUG connector on the mobo.  Once I supplied power to that plug, it seemed to stop the crashes.

Sometimes the solution to a problem is a bit like . . . magic
and the only person who knows your hardware better than anyone else is . . . YOU
so, if it works for you then . . . well done on that ; ))

Sorry about that -- thought I had done something with this.   I was able to resolve the problem on my own ultimately although the feedback here was much appreciated.  Thanks to all!