ok i have this 80gb western digital harddrive and linux just wont detect it (i have tried any special options for installing or anything like that)

slackware 8 = wont detect
slackware 9 = wont detect
suse 8.1 = wont detect

windows 98/xp = detects fine

im guessing its something to do with linux.(full stop) or that windows just automatically adds an option which is needed. i hope someone can help and also im a linux noob so go easy on me thanks for any help.

have you made sure the jumpers on the hd are set correctly? just a thought, perhaps windowze has something that compensates, also run dmesg | grep hd to see for sure if it really doesn't detect it or if the hd just isn't partitioned and formatted
you can use fdisk to repartition it and mount (do a man mount) to mount it

dmesg | grep hd
gives out a lot of i/o errors.

yes the jumpers are set correct.

well ive ran the setup as is no partitions with no luck, ive manually made the partitions ive also had help from a friend of mine telling me what to do and it still doesnt work.

Can you post the output of:

df

Are you using RAID?

problem about your chipset I suppose....
or maybe dma
something...

Win 98 is years behind Linux about hardware support, the problem is something else.

df -a
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/loop7 6047492 4871792 868500 85% /
proc 0 0 0 - /proc
usbfs 0 0 0 - /proc/bus/usb
========================

this may looked messed up but im having to use http://topologi-linux.sf.net which is a linux distro which runs on a windows partition and its running on m second 13.5gb hard drive, not my main 80gig hd which i want. (this topologi linux also didnt detect my main harddrive)

Try update your BIOS. What is your motherboard?

Try switch the harddrive (the master and slave).

Use better cable, e.g. for ATA133.

Doesn't work?
Now, try again using linux's fdisk command:

fdisk -l

(paste the output here)


Hope you have more clues for help ;-)

I have a 80 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM HD and I can't get linux to detect even half of it! it will only detect around 35 GB of space. What do I do???

Suspect your motherboard BIOS setting. Old motherboards sometime cannot detect the curent hard drives. Try update your BIOS.

If you have a relatively new mobo and the BIOS shows correct brand name, type, and other spect. of your hard drive then suspect your cabling. Try use a higher rating cable. Switch the master / slave and primary / secondary also jumper configuration. Try one hard drive at a time.

Try edit your lilo or grub setting. The suspected errors are usually shown by kernel messages. Try dmesg and post the result on this forum for help.

Show your hardware inventory, e.g. mobo maker/type/model, bios date/brand, hard drive(s) type/maker/model/spects, etc.

Also answer some questions on the above posts ;-)


Have fun :-)

My BIOS is as follows:
BIOS Date: 08/13/99
BIOS Type: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
BIOS ID: 08/13/99-i440BX-P2B
OEM Sign-On: ACPI BIOS Revision 2002
Chipset: Intel 440BX/ZX rev 3
Superio: Unknown
How do I get an update (possibly free if you can)?