ata1: SRST failed (errno =- 16), but there's no hard drive.

tfnc99 · 04-18-2014, 10:28 AM

I have a very old ThinkPad (T43), and I decided to put Debian 7 on it and use it for web surfing, but it takes a very long time to start up, hanging on a message:

Code:

ata1: SRST failed (errno =- 16)
ata1: SRST failed (errno =- 16)

(yeah, it comes up twice)
And after a long time it gets killed and the boot process moves forward. Searching around brings up some suggestions about changing the jumpers on the hard drive or disabling the hard drive in BIOS, but there isn't a hard drive, nor a place to disable it in BIOS!

I have Debian installed on on a flash drive, but the message comes up when I boot from a CD too. The hard drive interface is the laptop IDE interface, but like I said there isn't a hard drive inserted.

Is there a way to stop this error from happening? Or just speed it up?

turtlebay777 · 04-19-2014, 06:53 PM

Most linux distros look for a hard drive as they assume you're going to install it on one.

Try Puppy which can be used without a hard drive.

Emerson · 04-19-2014, 06:56 PM

Disable the controller driver in kernel. Not sure how to do it in Debian without building a custom kernel.