[Soekris] Installing Debian on a 4501 with HDD on PCI Adapter

[Heather Lockridge]

I am having problems doing this.  

I have a RH 4801 system which I installed on a net4501 system by doing lots of hacking to it so that it runs even though it was built for a different CPU.  I would like a more stable version of linux running -- not that debian is necessarily any better than RH, debian is certainly easier to install on a 4501 by using netboot methods like PXE booting.

But where I am going here is that I want a version of debian that I can install on a HDD connected to the PCI interface on the 4501 board.  This way I can have a "reference" platform which I can easily keep updated and then periodically burn new flash images from it for the CF cards I would like to use.

I think I am not very good with the hardware parts of this however.

I did get debian installed directly into a CF card plugged into the CF slot on the 4501.  So, I then got a 3.3 v PCI IDE adapter card and plugged that into the 4501.  Then I took a 10 GB hdd and connected it to the IDE interface on the 4501, but supplied power to the HDD from an old PC.  A friend had me connect the grounding pads on the two boards, PC and net4501 together to avoid grounding issues.

But, when I boot the debian installer via PXE and tftpboot, the installer does not see the HDD.  I have the HDD set to MASTER. It doesn't seem to matter if it is set for Master or slave.  It still is not seen.

If anyone can offer some suggestions which would help me here I would be grateful.

Thanks,

Heather


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