Installing on Pentium3 directly to hdd

VasiaZ · February 3, 2019, 1:33pm

I have Pentium 3 box with 128mb RAM and i was trying to install OpenWRT to 16gb sata2 ssd (via converter (sata-to-miniide board on jm20330 ic), bios correctly recognize drive, but looks like it does not support booting from any usb).
x86-legacy image copied to ssd with "gnome disk utility" gives just "LOADING GRUB.." and then just blinking cursor.
What i'm doing wrong?

lleachii · February 3, 2019, 2:04pm

From the link you provided, the device only has an IDE disk drive capability
Can you explain how you managed to connect a SATA drive?

VasiaZ · February 3, 2019, 3:17pm

(via converter (sata-to-miniide board on jm20330 ic)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/nEYe5ZgfTRjQhNXu9

lleachii · February 3, 2019, 3:20pm

I would say the solution to your issue is to purchase a standard, circa 1990's IDE drive, contemporary with the computing era of the device in question.

Are you sure it's fully powered?

VasiaZ · February 3, 2019, 3:57pm

Yes, i think shassis psu is powerfull enough for (3.3v@5a, 5.1v@10a, 12v@1a) for one cpu card.

Pata-to-sata converter chip seems to be commonly used, and ssd correctly recognised by bios, so i dont think it is a source of a problem

lleachii · February 3, 2019, 3:59pm

OK...how did you transfer the image to the SSD, create partition, etc.?

"Restore partition image" on the utility?

mk24 · February 3, 2019, 4:06pm

If there is not a serial port in the machine, GRUB will stall trying to open its serial console, but I think that happens at the GRUB menu.

I've always used dd of=/dev/sdb ... to copy the disk image. You may need to write using PATA through the adapter to have it on the disk in the same format.

VasiaZ · February 3, 2019, 4:32pm

Yes, and result looks correct

VasiaZ · February 10, 2019, 5:51am

So, spend some time plaing with grub config file

terminal console

set pager=1
set debug=all

gives me "GRUB Loading.....", then "Welcome to GRUB", and then just back screen with blinking cursor.
When i add set root=(hd0,msods1) to /boot/grub/grub.cfg, i get just "GRUB Loading....."
So I think source of problem is definetly not waiting for a serial port.

VasiaZ · February 10, 2019, 3:12pm

So seems like grub cant load config. Hmmm...

github.com

josefbacik/grub2/blob/96695ad84ce9c93f057ba53ae77d04d8561586e9/grub-core/kern/main.c#L274


void __attribute__ ((noreturn))
grub_main (void)
{
/* First of all, initialize the machine.  */
grub_machine_init ();


grub_boot_time ("After machine init.");


/* Hello.  */
grub_setcolorstate (GRUB_TERM_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT);
grub_printf ("Welcome to GRUB!\n\n");
grub_setcolorstate (GRUB_TERM_COLOR_STANDARD);


grub_load_config ();


grub_boot_time ("Before loading embedded modules.");


/* Load pre-loaded modules and free the space.  */
grub_register_exported_symbols ();
#ifdef GRUB_LINKER_HAVE_INIT
grub_arch_dl_init_linker ();

lleachii · February 10, 2019, 3:24pm

Are you using legacy or x86_64?

You should be using legacy.

VasiaZ · February 10, 2019, 3:42pm

Yes, legacy. Tried both - ready image downloaded from openwrt site and builded from sources (with p3 (coppermine) selected in kernel_menuconfig), same result.