HD not recognized on install

[iasa]

I have been trying to install kubuntu from the Live CD.

When the partitioner starts up it does not display any HD's or partitions. If I try clicking next it complains that I haven't mounted root. The HD appears to be recognized by the BIOS and it was recognized the last time I tried to do the install (which was back in april and I had partitioning problems then too, but at least the hd showed up).

When the live CD is booting up it prints out the following:

[###.######] ata1.00: exception Emak 0x0 Sact 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
[###.######] (BMDMA stat 0x25)
[###.######] cmd c8/0:08:10:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 cdb 0x0 data 4096 in

[###.######] Buffer I/O Error on device sda, logic block 2

Both of these appear multiple times, but with different numbers in place of the # nd the 4096 changes as well.

So I am open to any ideas. Thanks in advance to those who help.

[Snowhog]

Re: HD not recognized on install

What are your system specs? PC type (desktop/laptop) hard drive(s) type, video graphics, etc.

[iasa]

Re: HD not recognized on install

I have a Dell Dimension 8100 Desktop
Intel Pentium 4 Processor 1.5 GHz
256 MB Ram
40 GB HD

Anything else that would be helpful?

[Snowhog]

Re: HD not recognized on install

What existing OS is on it? Windoze XP or Vista??

[iasa]

Re: HD not recognized on install

It originally had windows xp but I am pretty sure I wiped that out in my previous attempts to re partition the hd.

I am using my laptop with xp to write this.

[opie]

Re: HD not recognized on install

If, from the livecd, you open a terminal window(kmenu -> system -> console) and enter the following:

sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda

can you give us the results of this?

Note that is fdisk -l (lowercase L) for "list the partition table" of the first ide drive.

[iasa]

Re: HD not recognized on install

There was no output whatsoever. It just gave me the prompt again.

I am guessing that is a bad sign.

I did however do an ls in /dev/ and found what looked to be my 40 GB hd under the name sda1. I did the fdisk on that and got some cylinder etc. information along with:

Disk /dev/sda1 does not contain a valid partition table.

[opie]

Re: HD not recognized on install

Can you do a

sudo lshw

and confirm that your disk is /dev/sda
There should be disk information with capacity,vendor and so on somewhere in the listing.

Can you also tell us whether you are ok with forgetting about what was previously installed on the disk and replacing it with linux or are you wanting to try to recover what was there? That will make things considerably more difficult.

[iasa]

Re: HD not recognized on install

ok I didn't get any kind of vendor info about the hd, all I got that I thought might be relevant was:

*-ide
description: IDE Interface
product: 82801BA IDE Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f.1
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.1
logical name: scsi:0
logical name: scsi:1
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33 MHz
capabilities: ide bus_master emulated
configuration: driver=ata_piix latency=0 module=ata_piix
*-disk UNCLAIMED
description: SCSI Disk
product: IC35L040AVER07-0
vendor: ATA
physical id: 0
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
version: ER40
SXPTXPD5063
configuration: ansiversion=5

I have no need to save or recover anything on the hd, I am just hoping to get kubuntu installed.

[dibl]

Re: HD not recognized on install

In some BIOS's, there are multiple "modes" for IDE hard drives. If yours offers a mode different than the one you have set, you might try changing it.

[opie]

Re: HD not recognized on install

That product id is a 40GB ibm deskstar.
Since you aren't trying to save anything lets go ahead and see if you can get the drive partitioned using /dev/sda

Before you do this disconnect other drives/storage devices you may have so you don't run the risk of trashing them. For example if you have an external drive connected to your system disconnect it before you proceed.

sudo fdisk /dev/sda

Note it is NOT /dev/sda1 (sda1 refers to the first partition on the sda drive)

A couple of key instructions within fdisk
m will show a help screen
p will show the table as it will be written (i.e. the present state including any changes you have made)
t allows you to change the partition type id

The easiest thing is to create 2 partitions. One will be for / (root) and one will be swap. If you want to create 3 partitions so you have a separate partition for your home directory then you should probably give 7-10GB for root. You can post back if you want to go this route. I will assume, at this point, 2 partitions.

Create the first partition taking the default for first cylinder and entering +37000M for last cylinder (this specifies size in megabytes) so you create a roughly 37GB partition. This should leave enough space for your swap partition. After you create the partition use t to set this partition to number 83 (you can list the id numbers with l).

create another partition using defaults for start and ending cylinder and the rest of the drive should be taken for swap space. Using t set this partition to 82 (not 83).

Try p to show the results and make sure things look correct and show proper partition types linux and linux swap.

Very important !!! :
Nothing is written to your disk until you press w to write the table out to the disk so you must use w when you feel you have set up everything correctly.

q will exit after this.

Try sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda and see if the partitions show up and the capacity makes sense (it won't necessarily be exactly 40GB but it should be close).

Then I would reboot before trying to install. If the disk shows up in the installation you should manually set the first partition to / and the second as swap , rather than letting the installer repartition the drive.

Post back with any questions. If the drive refuses to show up we will try to do some things to force it to be recognized as /dev/hda

[iasa]

Re: HD not recognized on install

I only have the one hd attached and when I ran:

sudo fdisk /dev/sda

it said: "Unable to open /dev/sda"

so out of curiosity I ran:

sudo fdisk /dev/sda[b]1[/b]

and it opened up and took me to the fdisk command prompt. Which only confuses me more. I exited though without doing anything else and await those ideas on how to force it to be recognized.

I also checked the bios settings as per dibl's request but no luck.

[opie]

Re: HD not recognized on install

I'm confused as to why it can access the partition, but you can't proceed to repartition the device.

Since this is complicated by the fact that we are in a temporary livecd environment I'm thinking it might be better to take a different approach.

What does everyone think of the idea of using a gutsy alternate install cd? Does anyone know enough about the differences in the startup environment to know whether there is a better probability of success in accessing and partitioning this drive with the alternate cd?

Are you presently using the feisty7.04 or gutsy7.1 livecd?

[iasa]

Re: HD not recognized on install

I am currently using the gutsy 7.1 live cd.

I don't have any idea whether the alternate cd might be a better alternative. Maybe someone else has some input they could give. Anyone?

[mikesignguy]

Re: HD not recognized on install

with those system specs i would use the alternate cd...