Re: [ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem .....
Barry Drake wrote: > Hitachi boot disk with a diagnostic/repair tool told be that the boot > sector had an irrecoverable mechanical error. What, exactly, did it say? Did a google of the phrase turn anything up? > This entire saga doesn't make any sense at all to me. Any thoughts? Can you boot the machine with the disk plugged in? If so, is anything pertinent logged (/var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages, dmesg)? Have you tried switching between AHCI and non-AHCI mode? Many drives have broken AHCI implementations where specifically not using it makes things better. Sometimes vice-versa is true. If Windows is fine with it, I'd not find it easy to blame anything below the firmware - cables, controllers etc. -- Avi -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem .....
On 18/03/11 18:37, Barry Drake wrote: On Fri, 2011-03-18 at 17:42 +, Rob Beard wrote: You might find it could be an SATA cable. Chances are you're not going to find a big IDE drive easily now as everything is going down the route of SATA. First thing I did was try a new SATA cable. I found a 320 GiB IDE drive at Amazon quite cheaply, so I'm getting that. I'm very reluctant to re-flash the BIOS as a) it may not work (the updates give reasons and none of them are SATA-related). And b), if it goes wrong, there's no way out if you can't boot! The majority of motherboards have BIOS recovery these days, most IIRC use floppies to boot and flash a BIOS and others can use USB sticks. As long as you're careful (make sure the power doesn't go off, flash the correct BIOS) then it's unlikely anything could go wrong. You may however find that either a PCI (or PCI Express) SATA controller or an IDE to SATA convertor may also do the job (it allows you to use an SATA drive on an IDE connection)... I hadn't thought about a PCI SATA adaptor. That might have been an easy answer. The SATA/IDE adaptor would have been OK if I had two IDE slots. SATA adaptors can't do master/slave drives, so I would have lost the DVD drive. I guess the new PCI drive will keep us going for the rest of the computer's life. Yeah it is kind of annoying that motherboards only have one IDE connector (or in some cases none at all). Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem .....
On Fri, 2011-03-18 at 17:42 +, Rob Beard wrote: > You might find it could be an SATA cable. Chances are you're not going > to find a big IDE drive easily now as everything is going down the route > of SATA. First thing I did was try a new SATA cable. I found a 320 GiB IDE drive at Amazon quite cheaply, so I'm getting that. I'm very reluctant to re-flash the BIOS as a) it may not work (the updates give reasons and none of them are SATA-related). And b), if it goes wrong, there's no way out if you can't boot! > You may however find that either a PCI (or PCI Express) SATA controller > or an IDE to SATA convertor may also do the job (it allows you to use an > SATA drive on an IDE connection)... I hadn't thought about a PCI SATA adaptor. That might have been an easy answer. The SATA/IDE adaptor would have been OK if I had two IDE slots. SATA adaptors can't do master/slave drives, so I would have lost the DVD drive. I guess the new PCI drive will keep us going for the rest of the computer's life. Regards,Barry. -- Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team. http://ubuntuadverts.org/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem .....
On 18/03/11 17:03, Barry Drake wrote: On Fri, 2011-03-18 at 12:40 +, Matthew Daubney wrote: I'd check if there's an update for the BIOS, I've seen various drives/chipset configurations have weird issues over time :) Thanks. There is an update. But rather than risk frying my wife's motherboard, I've taken the easy way out for now and popped an IDE drive in to do backups. It's barely big enough, so I'll probably look out for a bigger IDE drive and be done with it. Regards,Barry. You might find it could be an SATA cable. Chances are you're not going to find a big IDE drive easily now as everything is going down the route of SATA. You may however find that either a PCI (or PCI Express) SATA controller or an IDE to SATA convertor may also do the job (it allows you to use an SATA drive on an IDE connection)... http://www.ebuyer.com/product/200853 Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem .....
I'd definitely recommend a bios update, and also check for any controller firmware updates. Bodsda Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -Original Message- From: Barry Drake Sender: ubuntu-uk-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:03:42 To: UK Ubuntu Talk Reply-To: bdr...@crosswire.org, UK Ubuntu Talk Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem . On Fri, 2011-03-18 at 12:40 +, Matthew Daubney wrote: > I'd check if there's an update for the BIOS, I've seen various > drives/chipset configurations have weird issues over time :) Thanks. There is an update. But rather than risk frying my wife's motherboard, I've taken the easy way out for now and popped an IDE drive in to do backups. It's barely big enough, so I'll probably look out for a bigger IDE drive and be done with it. Regards,Barry. -- Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team. http://ubuntuadverts.org/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem .....
On Fri, 2011-03-18 at 12:40 +, Matthew Daubney wrote: > I'd check if there's an update for the BIOS, I've seen various > drives/chipset configurations have weird issues over time :) Thanks. There is an update. But rather than risk frying my wife's motherboard, I've taken the easy way out for now and popped an IDE drive in to do backups. It's barely big enough, so I'll probably look out for a bigger IDE drive and be done with it. Regards,Barry. -- Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team. http://ubuntuadverts.org/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem .....
On 18 March 2011 12:20, Barry Drake wrote: > Hi there .. > > I'm really scratching my head over this one. My wife's computer has a > ALiveNF6P-VSTA motherboard. This has one IDE connector and four SATA > ports. It was running Windows 2000 on a SATA drive, so I installed a > second SATA drive (250 GiB) and put Ubuntu 10.04 on it. I also > installed a 160 GiB IDE drive for backups and all was fine. > > Last week, the IDE drive gave a SMART report that it was getting flaky > so I replaced it with a 500 GiB Hitachi SATA drive. Problems! Could > not copy more than 167.9 MB of data (by any means) After that, the > partition (ext4) became read only until I rebooted! I tried > re-partitioning and re-formatting and the drive appeared to die. A > Hitachi boot disk with a diagnostic/repair tool told be that the boot > sector had an irrecoverable mechanical error. > > As a last resort, I popped the drive into my computer, and it > re-formatted perfectly and showed no SMART errors. I tried a 160 GiB WD > drive in my wife's computer. EXACTLY the same problem occurs. I've now > re-formatted it to NTFS and tried booting into the Windows 2000 disk. > There is no problem copying files to the WD disk from Windows. But the > problem is identical from Ubuntu. > > I've tried swapping the disks into different SATA slots and I've tried > various things in the BIOS. The only clue here is that the Mobo manual > tells me: "LBA/Large Mode - Use this item to select the LBA/Large mode > for a hard disk > 512 MB under DOS and Windows; for Netware and UNIX > user, select [Disabled] to disable the LBA/Large mode." > > I've tried this on the WD drive and it makes no difference. I tried it > on the Ubuntu drive, but it causes Grub failure and brings up the Grub > rescue prompt. I could re-install with the LBA/Large mode turned off, > but it's going to be hard for me to do a backup first I think I'd > have to re-install an IDE drive to do it. > > This entire saga doesn't make any sense at all to me. Any thoughts? I > have no problem at all with either of the above SATA drives in my own > computer which also has three SATA drives installed - and the LBA/Large > mode is set to 'auto' on that one. > > Kind regards, Barry. > > I'd check if there's an update for the BIOS, I've seen various drives/chipset configurations have weird issues over time :) -Matt Daubney -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] SATA drive problem .....
Hi there .. I'm really scratching my head over this one. My wife's computer has a ALiveNF6P-VSTA motherboard. This has one IDE connector and four SATA ports. It was running Windows 2000 on a SATA drive, so I installed a second SATA drive (250 GiB) and put Ubuntu 10.04 on it. I also installed a 160 GiB IDE drive for backups and all was fine. Last week, the IDE drive gave a SMART report that it was getting flaky so I replaced it with a 500 GiB Hitachi SATA drive. Problems! Could not copy more than 167.9 MB of data (by any means) After that, the partition (ext4) became read only until I rebooted! I tried re-partitioning and re-formatting and the drive appeared to die. A Hitachi boot disk with a diagnostic/repair tool told be that the boot sector had an irrecoverable mechanical error. As a last resort, I popped the drive into my computer, and it re-formatted perfectly and showed no SMART errors. I tried a 160 GiB WD drive in my wife's computer. EXACTLY the same problem occurs. I've now re-formatted it to NTFS and tried booting into the Windows 2000 disk. There is no problem copying files to the WD disk from Windows. But the problem is identical from Ubuntu. I've tried swapping the disks into different SATA slots and I've tried various things in the BIOS. The only clue here is that the Mobo manual tells me: "LBA/Large Mode - Use this item to select the LBA/Large mode for a hard disk > 512 MB under DOS and Windows; for Netware and UNIX user, select [Disabled] to disable the LBA/Large mode." I've tried this on the WD drive and it makes no difference. I tried it on the Ubuntu drive, but it causes Grub failure and brings up the Grub rescue prompt. I could re-install with the LBA/Large mode turned off, but it's going to be hard for me to do a backup first I think I'd have to re-install an IDE drive to do it. This entire saga doesn't make any sense at all to me. Any thoughts? I have no problem at all with either of the above SATA drives in my own computer which also has three SATA drives installed - and the LBA/Large mode is set to 'auto' on that one. Kind regards, Barry. -- Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team. http://ubuntuadverts.org/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
