Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

Is that the problem?

It's not a problem, but it has to be understood -- it could be an issue getting Grub to install as desired. OK, you told me you two IDE drives, but what is the interface to the third drive? Is it the big USB drive? If so, can you unplug it safely?

I thought it was the USB drive, but I was mistaken. All three drives are IDE drives directly connected to the motherboard ( Abit ).

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

All three drives are IDE drives directly connected to the motherboard ( Abit ).

Ahhhhhhhhhh. Interesting. So your Abit motherboard has two IDE connectors, and on one connector you have the two 32GB drives, and on the second you have the big drive?

OK, here's the deal. On the big 233GB drive, you have the boot flag set, and your BIOS thinks it is the first bootable drive (/dev/sda). You also have the boot flag set on your Win2k drive, so when your computer finds no OS on the big drive, it next goes to the Win2k drive. So, using GParted, you need to "turn off" the boot flag on the big drive. This is done by (a) unmounting the drive (if it happens to be mounted), (b) right-clicking on the partition, and choosing "Manage Flags" and then unchecking the box in front of "boot". If you don't do anything else, it will not affect your data or anything. Can you do those things?

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

All three drives are IDE drives directly connected to the motherboard ( Abit ).

Ahhhhhhhhhh. Interesting. So your Abit motherboard has two IDE connectors, and on one connector you have the two 32GB drives, and on the second you have the big drive?

OK, here's the deal. On the big 233GB drive, you have the boot flag set, and your BIOS thinks it is the first bootable drive (/dev/sda). You also have the boot flag set on your Win2k drive, so when your computer finds no OS on the big drive, it next goes to the Win2k drive. So, using GParted, you need to "turn off" the boot flag on the big drive. This is done by (a) unmounting the drive (if it happens to be mounted), (b) right-clicking on the partition, and choosing "Manage Flags" and then unchecking the box in front of "boot". If you don't do anything else, it will not affect your data or anything. Can you do those things?

yeap, I can change the boot flag in GParted, I know where that dialog is. I'll double check on the IDE sockets if you think I should, but I do know they are all running off that board. Should I verify that first?

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

There are a couple more issues that would help to be very clear on:

1. I'd like to know for 100% certainty that the big hard drive really is on a second IDE connector, and not on a SATA interface. That is a huge deal.

2. I'd like to see your BIOS set to boot in this sequence:

first, CD ROM
second, the IDE channel that has the 32GB drives on it
third, the IDE channel that has the big drive on it

If the BIOS does not let you change the boot sequence between the two IDE connectors (channels), then it might be necessary to swap the ribbon connections on the motherboard, to achieve the sequence that I showed above.

And if you tell me you've discovered that the 233GB drive is actually a SATA drive, then we're back to formulating a new plan ....

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

There are a couple more issues that would help to be very clear on:

1. I'd like to know for 100% certainty that the big hard drive really is on a second IDE connector, and not on a SATA interface. That is a huge deal.

2. I'd like to see your BIOS set to boot in this sequence:

first, CD ROM
second, the IDE channel that has the 32GB drives on it
third, the IDE channel that has the big drive on it

If the BIOS does not let you change the boot sequence between the two IDE connectors (channels), then it might be necessary to swap the ribbon connections on the motherboard, to achieve the sequence that I showed above.

And if you tell me you've discovered that the 233GB drive is actually a SATA drive, then we're back to formulating a new plan ....

Ok, let me open the case and verify this stuff first.

hmm. It's got a wide, flat connector ribbon ( the 233 g drive ). It looks like it connects to a small board seated in an expansion slot along the back edge of the motherboard ( PCI? can't remember ). How else can I verify the interface?

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

boot flag has been cleared on sda

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

OK. Flat ribbon = IDE/PATA, so we know what it is. Must be an added IDE adapter, probably an ISA slot, or could be a PCI slot.

So, the next question is, what about the BIOS boot sequence?

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

OK. Flat ribbon = IDE/PATA, so we know what it is. Must be an added IDE adapter, probably an ISA slot, or could be a PCI slot.

So, the next question is, what about the BIOS boot sequence?

CDROM
HARD DISK
tht's all it lists! it doesn't give a choice of hard disks

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

Really?

Hmmmm -- that is most unusual, on motherboards of recent vintage. In your BIOS, is there a page where it shows the IDE channels, and the drives that are attached? If there is, maybe you could change the "logical" sequence, so the 32GB drive that has Win2k on it is "master" on IDE Channel #1? Then the other 32GB drive can be the "slave" on that channel, and the big drive can be the "master" on Channel #2.

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

Really?

Hmmmm -- that is most unusual, on motherboards of recent vintage. In your BIOS, is there a page where it shows the IDE channels, and the drives that are attached? If there is, maybe you could change the "logical" sequence, so the 32GB drive that has Win2k on it is "master" on IDE Channel #1? Then the other 32GB drive can be the "slave" on that channel, and the big drive can be the "master" on Channel #2.

Well there is a page that lists IDE primary master and primary slave, but wouldnt that fact that the 32GB drive that has Win on it has the boot flag set, and the 32GB drive that has the linux partitions on it doesn't have the boot flag set answer the question? The secondary channel is taken up by a cdrom and a dvd drive. Sorry, didn't mention those before. Shouldn't this work now that the boot flag is off the PCI/ISA/whatever drive?

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

No. Linux installers "read" the BIOS and other motherboard chips with "intelligence" and take their cues from that info. For whatever reason, your add-on IDE channel is being read as /dev/sda, which means the installer would assume you mean to install Grub in the MBR of that drive, unless some other place is specified, and also that the bootloader will look there first when looking for a boot sector.

There are multiple possibilities here -- I assume your 233GB drive is newer and faster than the 32GB drives? Are you sure you don't want your Linux OS on the faster drive?

Probably the approach most likely to let you follow your original plan would be to swap the ribbon connectors on the motherboard and add-on IDE connectors. I assume when you do that, the 32GB drives will be read as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, and the big drive will then be /dev/sdc. That should let the Kubuntu installer happily install grub on /dev/sda, with Kubuntu on /dev/sdb in the 12GB partition you made for it, and also see the Win2k bootable OS on /dev/sda.

One other issue is the question of drive jumpers. If there is a jumper on the "master" pins of the big drive, and the other two drives are using "cs" (cable select), then it is possible that even after you swap the cables, the big one will still be /dev/sda because of the jumper. So, I would say it needs to be checked somewhere in this process, and if it is jumpered "master" you need to change it to "cs".

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

No. Linux installers "read" the BIOS and other motherboard chips with "intelligence" and take their cues from that info. For whatever reason, your add-on IDE channel is being read as /dev/sda, which means the installer would assume you mean to install Grub in the MBR of that drive, unless some other place is specified, and also that the bootloader will look there first when looking for a boot sector.

There are multiple possibilities here -- I assume your 233GB drive is newer and faster than the 32GB drives? Are you sure you don't want your Linux OS on the faster drive?

Probably the approach most likely to let you follow your original plan would be to swap the ribbon connectors on the motherboard and add-on IDE connectors. I assume when you do that, the 32GB drives will be read as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, and the big drive will then be /dev/sdc. That should let the Kubuntu installer happily install grub on /dev/sda, with Kubuntu on /dev/sdb in the 12GB partition you made for it, and also see the Win2k bootable OS on /dev/sda.

One other issue is the question of drive jumpers. If there is a jumper on the "master" pins of the big drive, and the other two drives are using "cs" (cable select), then it is possible that even after you swap the cables, the big one will still be /dev/sda because of the jumper. So, I would say it needs to be checked somewhere in this process, and if it is jumpered "master" you need to change it to "cs".

So I swap the ribbon connectors, and change the jumpers ( there are jumpers ) and the linux disk becomes the primary and the win disk becomes the slave. Grub is put on the linux disk and call either windows or linux depending on the users selection. Correct?

I may have just lost interest

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

The only jumper that needs to come off is the one on the 233G drive, if it happens to be on the "master" pins.

So, you take the ribbon cable that is connected to the 32GB drives, and you unplug only the end on the motherboard, and you plug it into the add-on IDE adapter, and then you plug the ribbon from the 233GB drive into the motherboard IDE connector.

After you do that, you will boot your Kubuntu Live CD and run

fdisk -lu

and I would hope to see something approximately like this:

Disk /dev/sda: 41.0 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders, total 80043264 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x402b402a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 80019764 40009851 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdb: 41.0 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders, total 80043264 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf558ade1

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 79521749 39760843+ 5 Linux
/dev/sdb2 79521750 80035829 257040 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 126 79521749 39760812 83 Linux

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 490223474 245111706 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk identifier: 0x2f51117c

If it looks about like this, then maybe it's safe to attempt to install Kubuntu on /dev/sdb1, and Grub on the /dev/sda MBR.

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

The only jumper that needs to come off is the one on the 233G drive, if it happens to be on the "master" pins.

So, you take the ribbon cable that is connected to the 32GB drives, and you unplug only the end on the motherboard, and you plug it into the add-on IDE adapter, and then you plug the ribbon from the 233GB drive into the motherboard IDE connector.

After you do that, you will boot your Kubuntu Live CD and run

fdisk -lu

and I would hope to see something approximately like this:

Disk /dev/sda: 41.0 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders, total 80043264 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x402b402a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 80019764 40009851 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdb: 41.0 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders, total 80043264 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf558ade1

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 79521749 39760843+ 5 Linux
/dev/sdb2 79521750 80035829 257040 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 126 79521749 39760812 83 Linux

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 490223474 245111706 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk identifier: 0x2f51117c

If it looks about like this, then maybe it's safe to attempt to install Kubuntu on /dev/sdb1, and Grub on the /dev/sda MBR.

Let me digest this a bit, and verify again that the drives are connected as we think they are.

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

No problem.

Keep in mind that if the only thing you change is the connections to the motherboard, and you don't like the result (or it won't work), you can always reconnect them back to the current configuration -- there's no harm done.