I've made a small amount of progress. I downloaded the T2 linux install image for 586 (K6-2 is not 686?) and I can boot this in a DVD drive. I also finally found a PCI SATA card that is recognized. I can then boot the DVD, and install linux to the SATA drive. But then I can't get to the SATA drive again. I can boot the DVD and mount/access the SATA drive that way (as if I were installing all over again), but the BIOS can't boot the SATA drive directly.

So I think I need a mini-linux install on a CF card or something that the BIOS can boot, which in turn can boot the SATA drive. I think there is only a single thread here on this forum about linux, so does anyone know where I can go to find this sort of info?

If you install a MII cyrix you might get 686 stuff to work everything else on socket 7 is pretty much 586.

Technically MII is 5.5x86 it doesn't have all of the 686 stuff.

these CF cards are awesome

this sata card works really well on most of my socket 7 stuff

Thanks for the reply. So can you boot from those PCI cards? What do you set in the BIOS as the boot device, just "C" or something?

nickles rust wrote on 2025-08-20, 16:56:

Thanks for the reply. So can you boot from those PCI cards? What do you set in the BIOS as the boot device, just "C" or something?

... or something))) like SCSI/C/A in Award BIOS

nickles rust wrote on 2025-08-20, 16:56:

Thanks for the reply. So can you boot from those PCI cards? What do you set in the BIOS as the boot device, just "C" or something?

Yeah. I boot from them all the time.

Yeah, most mobos seem to like hd0 or C or whatever.

Thanks for the suggestion. I bought one of these cards and it seems to do the same thing as others. I can boot from a CD, then install linux on the SATA drive, but then on reboot there is no system disk. I need to boot on the CD again and do various mount, chroot, or kexec commands to access the SATA disk again. So it still seems like I need to boot on IDE to access the SATA drives. My stack of PCI drive controller boards is growing. Is there a guide for installing a "mini-boot" on a CF card that can do the real boot on the main PCI controller? Maybe the problem is just that grub2 sucks?

I've futzd around some with different BIOS options to no avail. There are many possible permutations. Would it help if I posted some pictures or is this a waste of time?

Which card?

The sata card I posted if it’s booting from a sata CD then the bios is pointing in the right place because the card is what is doing the CD booting.

If the compact flash card then not sure, both of those cards work really well for me.

Maybe try different pci slots. I’ve seen that cause issues before

Thanks for your patience. The idea here is to attach some large drives to a K6 that can be accessed over ethernet. Regular spinning SATA/SAS drives fit this purpose and there are many different drive controller cards available. I guess the trick is figuring out a working combination of hardware and software.

With the built-in IDE ports I seem to be limited to around 80GB, which is not very useful to me as a NAS. The latest controller card I bought is a Promise SATA 300 TX4 PCI 4-Port Controller Card GP 0434-03 REV A1, based on your picture. This new card "works" like a few of the others I've tried:

For testing I connected a 2TB drive to the card and I can boot from a CD/DVD drive connected to the built-in IDE port, and install linux to the SATA drive. But then I can't boot the fresh linux install from the SATA drive. To use it, I need to first re-connect and boot on the IDE CD/DVD drive with the install image again, then do stuff like rescue mode to get a command prompt and then mount, chroot, kexec, swapon, etc. to use the SATA drive. Then I have a big CD/DVD drive taking up space that was only needed to boot. So the PCI SATA controller card works, but is not bootable.

It seems like I need to first do a "mini" boot on IDE (like from a small CF card?), then once it can see the PCI controller card, do a real boot from that.

...or maybe there is a BIOS setting or IRQ tweak that will let it boot from PCI?

Also, what's going on with this?: It is taking a lot more effort to post stuff here anymore.

nickles rust wrote on 2025-09-17, 19:42:

Thanks for your patience. The idea here is to attach some large drives to a K6 that can be accessed over ethernet. Regular spi […]
Show full quote

Thanks for your patience. The idea here is to attach some large drives to a K6 that can be accessed over ethernet. Regular spinning SATA/SAS drives fit this purpose and there are many different drive controller cards available. I guess the trick is figuring out a working combination of hardware and software.

With the built-in IDE ports I seem to be limited to around 80GB, which is not very useful to me as a NAS. The latest controller card I bought is a Promise SATA 300 TX4 PCI 4-Port Controller Card GP 0434-03 REV A1, based on your picture. This new card "works" like a few of the others I've tried:

For testing I connected a 2TB drive to the card and I can boot from a CD/DVD drive connected to the built-in IDE port, and install linux to the SATA drive. But then I can't boot the fresh linux install from the SATA drive. To use it, I need to first re-connect and boot on the IDE CD/DVD drive with the install image again, then do stuff like rescue mode to get a command prompt and then mount, chroot, kexec, swapon, etc. to use the SATA drive. Then I have a big CD/DVD drive taking up space that was only needed to boot. So the PCI SATA controller card works, but is not bootable.

It seems like I need to first do a "mini" boot on IDE (like from a small CF card?), then once it can see the PCI controller card, do a real boot from that.

...or maybe there is a BIOS setting or IRQ tweak that will let it boot from PCI?

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Also, what's going on with this?: It is taking a lot more effort to post stuff here anymore.

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Assuming the the Promise PCI cards has a working BIOS, to boot from it you would need to set SCSI (EDIT: this because a PCI IDE controller with its own boot ROM looks the same as SCSI controller with a boot ROM to the motherboard's BIOS) as the preferred device in the boot order. Than, during POST, you should see the Promise BIOS option ROM splash screen where drives connected to the Promise controller are detected. You should then be able to boot from the drive connected to the first port.

That being said, my preference would be to boot and run Linux from a CF card or DOM or adapted SATA drive/SSD connected to an onboard IDE port. Separating OS and DATA drives makes both OS backups/restores and drive replacement easier.

nickles rust wrote on 2025-09-17, 19:42:

Also, what's going on with this?: It is taking a lot more effort to post stuff here anymore.

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This, I often get when trying to visit from work ... Guess it's some firewall incompatibility - but I don't think IT dept. will treat it as an urgent case if I report it 🤣

Yes - Award BIOS calls any bootable storage controller with its own BIOS "SCSI".

If that fails to boot, creating a small /boot partition on a CF card on the onboard IDE and installing the rest of linux on sata will work with BIOS boot from "C". Its just the kernel and initrd images that live there, it pretty much gets ignored after boot.