KNOS9 - Lenovo32

[pharrisire]

Don't know if this will help, but Kingston utility says the stick was
formatted successfully - then I try to make-bootable-usb in KNOS
- after it fails I take the stick back to windows and try to give it
a quick format - it fails, so I run the Kingston utility again and it says
its format was successful - so I bring the stick back to KNOS and
- etc,,,etc,,,,, I need an icon with a snake swallowing its own tail to
show how I'm running in a vicious circle.......

[Kevin McAleavey]

May 21, 2012 13:56:03 GMT -5 pharrisire said:

Don't know if this will help, but Kingston utility says the stick was
formatted successfully - then I try to make-bootable-usb in KNOS
- after it fails I take the stick back to windows and try to give it
a quick format - it fails, so I run the Kingston utility again and it says
its format was successful - so I bring the stick back to KNOS and
- etc,,,etc,,,,, I need an icon with a snake swallowing its own tail to
show how I'm running in a vicious circle.......

From our last round of diagnostics, we saw:

May 17 10:52:58 KNOS-32 kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus3 target 0 lun 0
May 17 10:52:58 KNOS-32 kernel: da0: <Kingston DataTraveler 160 1.00> Removable Direct Access SCSI-2 device
May 17 10:52:58 KNOS-32 kernel: da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
May 17 10:52:58 KNOS-32 kernel: da0: 7624MB (15615620 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 972C)
May 17 10:52:58 KNOS-32 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SYNCHRONIZE CACHE(10). CDB: 35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
May 17 10:52:58 KNOS-32 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: No sense data present
--- snipped ---
May 17 10:52:59 KNOS-32 kernel: pid 4482 (hald-probe-volume), uid 0: exited on signal 6
May 17 10:52:59 KNOS-32 kernel: pid 4484 (hald-probe-volume), uid 0: exited on signal 6
May 17 10:52:59 KNOS-32 kernel: pid 4483 (hald-probe-volume), uid 0: exited on signal 6
May 17 10:53:01 KNOS-32 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SYNCHRONIZE CACHE(10). CDB: 35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
May 17 10:53:01 KNOS-32 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: No sense data present

Apparently the issue with your hardware then isn't a formatting error or we'd be home by now. It's got to be either incorrect BIOS settings OR there's something wrong with the hardware on there. So let's see if we can get closer to solving this then now that the "obvious" (bad format on the stick) is out of the picture now.

Try inserting that stick into each and every USB port you have on there, and then shoot me another copy of the diagnostics. It's possible (some machines design certain USB ports to be different from the others) that it might light up in another USB socket. But for the sake of diagnostics, just try plugging it into each one and then once you've tried them all, grab me a copy of the diagnostics on that machine again so I can see what we're getting from each of those sockets. Maybe one of them will allow you to get it after you've grabbed the diagnostics. But if you can try every USB socket before sending the diagnostics, we can get a better picture of what's going on after trying the stick in each one to see if it turns up.

"da0" is being reported as broken in the one you've been trying. Maybe one of the others will wake up. da0 is the correct ID for the first stick plugged in. It's also possible that the BIOS settings for USB might be set incorrectly. If you can get me the exact model number from the bottom of that Lenovo so I can contact them for BIOS settings information, we might be able to get this going yet. But the problem right now is that the port is not recognizing the stick. I was hoping that it was just badly formatted or something like that but whatever's going on is a bit more involved than the simple. We'll get it.

[pharrisire]

"" Try inserting that stick into each and every USB port you have on there,
and then shoot me another copy of the diagnostics. ... But if you can try every
USB socket before sending the diagnostics, we can get a better picture of
what's going on after trying the stick in each one to see if it turns up. ""

Stick stuck in all four usb sockets, and fresh diags made - and sent.
[The icon for the added stick showed up top for each socket]

"" If you can get me the exact model number from the bottom of that Lenovo
so I can contact them for BIOS settings information, ""

Lenovo
Model name 8922
Type 8922-2FU
s/n L3-CW693 06/12
prod ID: 89222FU

[Kevin McAleavey]

Each time you plugged in, it reported back the same da0 device, which is what KNOS wants. So seems pretty clear that what's going on here is that BIOS isn't listening to us when we're trying to talk to it. Spent a few hours desperatley trying to find any documentation on BIOS for that thing, and Lenovo has removed everything related to that machine from their site. Couldn't even turn up anything anywhere else either.

You're going to need to go into BIOS I suspect to solve this. Should be the F1 key like most Lenovos. Once in there, I don't have an example to work with, so you're going to have to guess. You should have a tab on the top in there marked "Devices" and under that, there should be settings for "USB devices" ... I suspect this is where the mis-setting will be. Make note of how it's configured now so you can put it back if it doesn't work, then try the other option. Might be legacy mode, might be AHCI/UHCI or something like that. Without being able to see the screen, I'm unable to guess. But what's going on is that the device is appearing but the ability to talk to it is being blocked in BIOS.

You might ALSO have something somewhere else in there called "hardware virtualization" ... that should be off since KNOS needs to be able to talk directly to the hardware. But the problem is definitely in how the USB is setup, and that's a child of "AHCI/UHCI" elsewhere that might or might not be visible. Before you change anything though, be sure to write down what things were set for originally so that you can put them back. One of those though should make the difference.

[pharrisire]

after disabling legacy usb in bios:

KNOS-32# sh knos2usb
Hit your enter key to format your device ... [Should be: /dev/da0]:
diskinfo: /dev/da0: No such file or directory
diskinfo: /dev/da0: No such file or directory
diskinfo: /dev/da0: No such file or directory
diskinfo: /dev/da0: No such file or directory
knos2usb: arithmetic expression: expecting primary: "/1000000000"
KNOS-32#


after re-enabling legacy usb in bios:

KNOS-32# sh knos2usb
Hit your enter key to format your device ... [Should be: /dev/da0]:
Unable to find /dev/da0, please check the pathname
KNOS-32#


Nothing like "AHCI/UHCI" to be found, and
no "hardware virtualization"

There are only 5 tabs in bios, and not many options under each.
There must be a secret code to get into the deeper secret regions....

[pharrisire]

[/img]Judging by this screenshot, it looks like the Kingston utility did its job -
nary a trace of KNOS8 left on the stick.

file:///var/home/KNOS/Desktop/Screenshot-KINGSTON%20Properties.png

file:///var/home/KNOS/Desktop/Screenshot-KINGSTON%20Properties-1.png

Attachments:

[Kevin McAleavey]

Wish I knew ... sadly, I'm used to most manufacturers providing something in their documentation about the options in BIOS and from that I can usually figure out which one is the correct one to tickle. Couldn't find ANYTHING on their netbooks and most of the documentation they did have were all removed. On one of the other models (probably a desktop) they had mentioned those possibilities, so figured ... maybe.

"Legacy" for USB usually refers to "detect antique mice and keyboards" and is generally unrelated to sticks. But it's interesting that it makes any difference either way. ABout the only thing I can sugegst without knowing what other options are in there would be to look for anything related to SATA or PATA or disk drive detection. Some older BIOS' had issues with external drives, and since USB devices are technically SCSI devices (which isn't called out in any BIOS' lately) something is causing the hardware to not be able to read that Kingston stick properly in BIOS ... that's why the "cache" is failing because BIOS cannot read that stick and is feeding us back bad info there.

ANy chance of perhaps some other USB stick that Lenovo *can* read? If not, tell me what options are in that BIOS of yours and I'll try to guess.

[pharrisire]

"" ANy chance of perhaps some other USB stick that Lenovo *can* read? ""

I had gotten these two 8G sticks last year for KNOS32 and 64, but I rekon its time
to look for a 16 or 32G ,,, I'll be 'shopping' today and Monday.

[Kevin McAleavey]

May 26, 2012 9:08:05 GMT -5 pharrisire said:

"" ANy chance of perhaps some other USB stick that Lenovo *can* read? ""

I had gotten these two 8G sticks last year for KNOS32 and 64, but I rekon its time
to look for a 16 or 32G ,,, I'll be 'shopping' today and Monday.

Still wish I had any idea of what BIOS settings are off in that machine. Lots of people use those Kingston sticks without difficulty though I swear by those PNY jobbies myself even though some of those are strange too. But clearly that machine isn't liking the Kingstons and I swear it's gotta be something whacky in those BIOS settings that's causing it to not be able to read the stick parameters.

But ah well ... here's hoping the other sticks show up in there ... if not, then we really need to figure out what possible BIOS settings aren't quite right in there. That BIOS does have some issues.

[pharrisire]

"" Still wish I had any idea of what BIOS settings are off in that machine. ""

Well this is everything that shows that is user-changeable:

Five top level tabs:

Main:
two adjustable entries:
-System Time
-System Date

Advanced:
four adj. entries:
-Quiet Boot
-Power on Display
-Internal Modem
-Legacy USB Support

Security:
four adj. entries:
-Set Supervisor Password
-Set User Password
-Built-in HDD Password Select
-Set HDD User Password

Boot:
Boot priority order:
…...
Excluded from boot order:
…...

Exit:
-Exit Saving Changes
-Exit Discarding Changes
-Load Setup Defaults
-Discard Changes
-Save Changes

That's it - there ain't no 'mo....

[Kevin McAleavey]

We might have something there! In "advanced" ... that "quiet boot" item disables access to BIOS emulation for drives (HDD, USB, any drive) ... try toggling THAT one. Maybe that's the culprit!

Might also have an effect on what we've been emailing about. When enabled, it can squirrel disk writes since that feature removes access to the disk controller, depending on Windows to remember where it was ... fingers and other appendages crossed!

[pharrisire]

"" that "quiet boot" item disables access to BIOS emulation for
drives (HDD, USB, any drive) ... try toggling THAT one. ""

Sigh... its already disabled, as is the internal modem.
Legacy USB support is enabled, and Power on display is
LCD only.

.....
Went ahead and enabled it and tried to make the stick again,
but got the same error:
KNOS-32# sh knos2usb
Hit your enter key to format your device ... [Should be: /dev/da0]:
Unable to find /dev/da0, please check the pathname
KNOS-32#

[Kevin McAleavey]

That was my last hope on that one, that something in BIOS could be toggled to make the system give us the data we needed to talk to it. Hopefully a different stick will work ...