Ubuntu doesn't detect my HDDs

[erobertwald]

Okay, I've looked around for the past week but can't seem to find anything that's getting me past this problem, despite it being what seems like a common problem...

I am trying to install Ubuntu Server and it isn't detecting either of my hard drives. I tried all the drivers in the list that comes up, to no avail.

This is a brand new install, all parts are straight out of the box. I'm running 64 bit Athlon on an XFX 8200 GeForce board with 4GB ram. The drives are Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA.

I'd appreciate any help on this. Please bear in mind that the only thing newer than my hardware is my own experience with setting up Linux. This is my first try.

Thanks in advance!

E

[namdung]

Is the BIOS detecting the HDD?

[erobertwald]

Oops. I knew I'd forget a detail.. Yes. BIOS is picking up both HDD.

[taurus]

Do you have a LiveCD handy? Can you boot from it and then post the output of this command from a terminal?

Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal

sudo fdisk -l

[erobertwald]

Tried booting the LiveCD. Got the status bar and Ubuntu logo, then a prompt that says (initramfs)

[erobertwald]

Okay, did some reading and removed the 'quiet splash' as suggested. Seems to be going through boot now.

[erobertwald]

Tried booting the LiveCD and got a long scroll of data, now a blank screen.

[erobertwald]

Ugh.. Sorry.. Not a blank screen... Gets to [ 97.5936231] Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision:3.20 and then the (initramfs) prompt again.

[erobertwald]

Okay, finally made it. Got rid of quiet splash, added iommu=noaperture and als added all_generic_ide at the boot line and got through to the desktop.

Here's the results of sudo fdisk -l:

Disk dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
units=cylinders of 16165 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sda doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
units=cylinders of 16165 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

[taurus]

How would you like to partition your new 500GB? Do you want to have three partitions: /, /home, & swap? Open gparted (System -> Administration) from the LiveCD and partition your drive first if you want. Then when you install it, pick the Manual option and mount one partition as / and the other as /home. The installer should know what to do with the swap partition.