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View Full Version : [SOLVED] 9.10 does not detect SATA HD for Installation



ChrisThompson
March 5th, 2010, 02:10 AM
Hi everyone, I've posted about this problem on a lot of similar threads and found nothing, so I'm creating a new one in the hopes of finally getting some answers.

Ubuntu 9.10 never detected my two, IDE-controlled, non-RAID SATA drives. I never bothered to make it until the PATA drive that was running karmic died. Now I'm trying to dual-boot with my XP install on those SATA drives, but I can't get ubuntu to recognize them.

Mobo: ASUS a8v-xe, North Bridge VIA K8T890, South Bridge VIA VT8251, Phoenix AwardBIOS
HDs: one SATA 3.0 40 gB Maxtor drive, and one SATA 3.0 500 gB WD drive. The drives are not RAID, and the BIOS lists them as IDE-controlled.

The install partitioner does not detect any drives. When I boot off of the live CD, neither GParted nor Disk utility detects them.

I have tried each of the following, with no luck:
-removing DMRAID, both in Synaptic and Terminal
-installing with 8.10, 9.10 txt-alternate, and 10.04 Beta
-booting in expert mode with txt-alternate CD and disabling RAID
-Changing drive controllers in BIOS to RAID or AHCI
-booting the liveCD as 'noapic' and 'nolapic'

On another thread, someone posted a script to detect HDs. This is what it read for me:



Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================


=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

no valid partition table found
blkid -c /dev/null: __________________________________________________ __________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/loop0 squashfs

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: ===========================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

aufs / aufs (rw)
/dev/sr0 /cdrom iso9660 (rw)
/dev/loop0 /rofs squashfs (rw)

=======Devices which don't seem to have a corresponding hard drive==============

no block devices found


I'm running out of ideas and getting really, really frustrated. Can anyone offer any new suggestions?

Thank you so much for your help,

Chris.

oldfred
March 5th, 2010, 04:21 PM
Since you have two PATA drive are they correctly jumpered. One must be master and the other slave. Or if using cable select you must be usiing the newer 80 wire cable with different color connectors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA

Edit:
Sorry I read the beginning and missed that you had uninstalled the PATA drives.

ChrisThompson
March 6th, 2010, 02:03 AM
Yeah, the PATA drive isn't a factor in this anymore unless you've got some papers that need weighin' down...:KS

Also, if I type sudo fdisk/dev I get:



last_lba(): I don't know how to handle files with mode 40755
You will not be able to write the partition table.

Unable to read /dev


Does that add any clarification?

yuvraj333333
March 6th, 2010, 09:33 AM
Same Prb was with me,Ubuntu was not detecting my SATA Hard disk and partitions,well in that case there was something wrong in partition table,so i downloaded Sea Tools from seagate website,I writed sea tools Iso to Cd,booted from Cd and formated the hard disk with Zero Fill,It took 90 Mins For 250 GB Hard disk,after doing this then ubuntu detected my partitions,This tool also repaired bad sectors of my hard disk.

ChrisThompson
March 6th, 2010, 11:46 PM
PROBLEM SOLVED! (mostly)

As it turns out, the problem was my VIA VT8251 south bridge conflicting with Ubuntu.

While searching for this problem I found this link (http://www.ubuntu1501.com/2007/01/installing-ubuntu-on-your-dell-1501.html) to a blogger talking about how he booted onto a Dell 1501 (which has the same south bridge and SATA drives). Trouble is he wrote it for either 6.10 or 7.04, so it needs a little updating. Here's what I did:

1.) boot from the liveCD.
2.) at the ubuntu options menu, hit f6, then escape out of that menu. Now the boot options are at the bottom of the menu, and you can edit them.
3.) At the end of the boot options, after "rw quiet splash --" add the line:


pci=nomsi

msi is what causes the conflict with VIA, so cutting it out shortcuts the problem.
4.) select 'Start Ubuntu without any changes to your computer' . Once it loads, start the installer. (I guess you could just go straight into 'Install Ubuntu' from the menu, but I didn't)
5.) the SATA drives now show up when the Partiton Manager activates. Install Ubuntu as normal.

NOW it gets interesting. This next step had me hung up for quite a while.

6.) As part of the install process, ubuntu needs to restart. Before it does, make sure you know what partition the installation is on. "/dev/sda#" Jot this down and let it restart.
7.) At the GRUB menu, highlight Ubuntu and hit 'e'. The boot menu will come up. Make THESE TWO CHANGES:


root=/dev/sda#

where # is the number you took down before, and add


pci=nomsi

at the end of the line like before.
8.) Ubuntu boots, finishes installation, and everything is gravy....

==========
!!EXCEPT!!
==========

I have to repeat step 7 every time I boot ubuntu. I've tried editing the boot.cfg but I don't have the priv's to change it. Does anyone know how to do this?

Thank you to the whole Ubuntu community for your help in this. If you found this thread because you have the same problem (and it looks like a common one) I hope this helps you.

--Chris

oldfred
March 7th, 2010, 01:17 AM
You edit grub not grub.cfg and run sudo update-grub to fix it permanently.

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub
from
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2


GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX

If it exists, this line imports any entries to the end of the 'linux' command line (GRUB legacy's "kernel" line) for both normal and recovery modes. This is similar to the "altoptions" line in menu.lst


GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

This line imports any entries to the end of the 'linux' line (GRUB legacy's "kernel" line). The entries are appended to the end of the normal mode only. This is similar to the "defoptions" line in menu.lst. For a black screen with boot processes displayed in text, remove "quiet splash". To see the grub splash image plus a condensed text output, use "splash". The entry "acpi=off", if required, would also be an option entered on this line.

ChrisThompson
March 7th, 2010, 01:45 AM
Double solved! Thanks, oldfred!

SiouxerBrewer
March 24th, 2010, 08:18 PM
Thank you for fixing this problem! I have been battling it for a few days now until I found this thread. For my situation I just entered

-"pci=nomsi" in the boot screen after pressing "e".
-Then when I ran "gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub" in a terminal I changed "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"" to look like "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash pci=nomsi""
-I then saved that file before closing it then "sudo update-grub"

Problem solved. Cheers!