HOWTO use HDD in ThinkPad Ultrabase

SaintDanBert · 11-23-2009, 11:04 PM

My ThinkPad has an UltraBase dock. The dock has a drive bay for either (1) the CD/DVD drive, or (2) an HDD drive.

I put a new larger HDD drive into the dock and booted CloneZilla.
After some questions, I get an error "only one drive found".
From the shell, I could only find the original system drive and
could not see the HDD in the dock.

During boot of the CloneZilla media, I get an error saying that there is an HDD problem "press <esc> to continue".

I have another HDD drive and a second ThinkPad with Ubuntu linux.
I can see both the internal drive and the dock drive on the Ubuntu
box. CloneZilla won't see any HDD in the dock bay.
Ubuntu sees the internal drive as /dev/sda and the ultra-bay drive as /dev/hda. Both drives are mechanically SATA devices.

I suppose that there are drivers or kernel modules missing from the CloneZilla ISO so that all-both drives are available.

Thanks for your help,
~~~ 0;-Dan

business_kid · 11-25-2009, 08:42 AM

Having 2 docking bays and 2 thinkpads allows you to try all combinations. Does the working laptop see drives in both systems?

Interesting stuff is often reported by 'dmesg |tail' or 'fdisk -l'

SaintDanBert · 12-03-2009, 04:50 PM

I suppose I can

1. shutdown
2. rig up the hardware
3. boot and gather lshw and lspci details
4. repeat for all combinations

I know that the ultra-BAY module for HDD expects a SATA device.
Both the HDD module and the DVD module have identical connectors.
In my "normal" configuration, the DVD appears as /dev/cdrom-->/dev/hda.
The command 'sudo eject /dev/hda' will open the DVD.

I'll do the tests above and report back shortly.

Quote:

Remember that WinXP lets me Stop, change modules, use new module,
and repeat regardless of DVD or HDD in the hopper. (1) Ubuntu and
(2) Linux ought to be able to do the same things -- the hardware
presents the feature. How do we make it available?

~~~ 0;-Dan

SaintDanBert · 12-07-2009, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaintDanBert

I suppose I can

1. shutdown
2. rig up the hardware
3. boot and gather lshw and lspci details
4. repeat for all combinations

I did these tests and learned some things:

A. The ultra-bay drives are mechanically SATA devices
B. The ultra-bay drive "carriers" have a proprietary connection
to the ultra-base dock
C. I get this report from lshw

Code:

user@host: $ diff yesDVDboot-lshw.log yesHDDboot-lshw.log

336,338c336,339
<    *-cdrom
<        description: DVD-RAM writer
<        product: MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-852
---
>    *-disk
>        description: ATA Disk
>        product: FUJITSU MHY2250BH
>        vendor: Fujitsu

342,345c343,359
<        version: RB02
<        serial: HC43 439385
<        capabilities: packet atapi cdrom removable 
<            nonmagnetic dma lba iordy audio cd-r cd-rw 
<            dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
<        configuration: mode=udma2 status=nodisc
<        *-medium
<            physical id: 0
<            logical name: /dev/hda
---
>        version: 0000000B
>        serial: K407T7825GRL
>        size: 232GiB (250GB)
>        capabilities: ata dma lba iordy smart security 
>            pm apm partitioned partitioned:dos
>        configuration: apm=off signature=000589db smart=on
>        *-volume
>            description: EXT3 volume
>            vendor: Linux
>            physical id: 1
>            bus info: ide@0.0,1
>            logical name: /dev/hda1
>            version: 1.0
>            serial: b4d01f94-bee1-4bfb-9f66-f1a6de44634d
>            size: 232GiB
>            capacity: 232GiB

D. Notice that linux sees both drives as /dev/hda in spite of
using mechanical SATA hardware
E. I got identical reports from dmesg after each configuration change.
F. I got identical reports from lspci after each configuration change.

QUESTION:
Which other logs should have details about what is going on as I try to Stop-Swap-Use this ultra-bay hardware?

QUESTION:
Are there config options for any of the system services that will make things more verbose with logging details?

~~~ 0;-Dan

business_kid · 12-08-2009, 03:19 AM

Can you clarify your results for me. 2 drives, 2 thinkpads; do they all work with each other now?

As for hda, it means there that from a software perspective, it is ide; That would limit top speed, but of course, the usb would act as a limit much quicker. My laptop is similar (disk=sda, cdrom=hda). The fact that you have mount points means your drivers are seeing the device.

Put in the drive that is not seen and type 'hdparm -I /dev/hda' fopr piles of info about it. At least the system interrogates it. Or fdisk -l /dev/hda to see the partitions

SaintDanBert · 05-09-2010, 05:33 PM

I found this description on ThinkWiki
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to...trabay_devices
that starts to explain what is going on with the hardware.
As yet, no one explains why win-dose (M$ XP) can handle this and linux (Ubuntu any) cannot.

The ThinkWiki page offers these details about my configuration:

Code:

X60, X60s, X60 Tablet, X61, X61s, X61 Tablet
internal => 2.5" HDD is SATA, 
Ultrabay => 1.8" HDD is PATA with SATA conversion Legacy IDE (PATA) 	 
Driver => ahci + ata_piix 	 -

~~~ 0;-Dan

SaintDanBert · 05-09-2010, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

Can you clarify your results for me.
...
Put in the drive that is not seen
...

Both the DVD and the HDD are seen and work when present at startup.
I can unmount and undock the HDD.
I can unmount the DVD media.
Once the media is out, there is no DVD device to do anything with.
After I undock a drive, when I try to change drives without reboot, various bad things happen -- not the least is a frozen system and worst is a panic.

Sigh,
~~~ 0;-Dan

IMHO: Too small a user base (sic) for enough folks to care about getting this to work.advantage Win-dose

SaintDanBert · 05-09-2010, 05:52 PM

Can someone who is a device driver and dynamic configuration maven (guru, expert, etc)
please explain what needs to happen for this to work?

Clearly, all of this works for a pure, USB or e-SATA connected drive ... as well as with that other operating system from Washington State.

end-user requests device unmount
unmount processing happens
device driver instance dissolves
end-user disconnects and removes the drive

The reverse happens when this or a different drive with a similar interface gets connected.

Thanks,
~~~ 0;-Dan

business_kid · 05-10-2010, 03:19 AM

Right. Are we talking about one of those little netbooks where you can have a dvd drive, or you can take out the dvd drive and put in a hard drive? And you want to boot from the hard drive and watch a dvd?? Forgive me, I am slow on the uptake.

If you ever pull the / hard drive on a working system, bad things are inclined to happen. You don't need a driver guru - you need a magician! You would have to make a ramdisk, or get some other root partition, and chroot to it. Then it needs /dev :-/.

A better option is:
1. Boot from an external usb drive. Presuming you are not allowed,
2. put /boot on your hard drive. Use an external usb drive. Then you might just get away with pulling the hard drive, as long as / is on the usb. I wish you luck on the dvd side

SaintDanBert · 05-10-2010, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

Right. Are we talking about one of those little netbooks where you can have a dvd drive, or you can take out the dvd drive and put in a hard drive? And you want to boot from the hard drive and watch a dvd?? Forgive me, I am slow on the uptake.

Yes, we are talking about something similar:

laptop with "docking station"
dock has one drive bay: DVD or HDD
want to use DVD to media
stop and remove the DVD drive; replace with an HDD
use the HDD for whatever
stop and remove the HDD; replace with DVD
use the DVD again

Win-dose lets me do this without a reboot. Ubuntu linux does not.

~~~ 0;-Dan

business_kid · 05-11-2010, 03:55 AM

Before you pull a hdd from linux, you need to provide it with a working root, proc, sysfs, etc. Linux _really_ doesn't like you pulling root. I had a box here where the drive on the ide bus was borderline with 2 drives attached. I would be working away and suddenly I would get a pause, then
hda: not ready
hdb: not ready
Maybe a three fingered salute? No go
hda: not ready
hdb: not ready
Can't execute /sbin/shutdown -r now

ls
hda: not ready
hdb: not ready etc.
The kernel was floating up there with it's feet firmly planted on nothing, if you follow me.

Get a usb drive, and make that root.

SaintDanBert · 05-11-2010, 11:05 AM

discussion has wandered far off from the question at hand

Laptop has an internal HDD with a running,happy, viable Ubuntu linux.
I don't want to do anything with this drive.

Laptop has an Ultrabase(tm) dock with an Ultrabay(tm) drive bay.The drive bay holds one of: DVD, HDD, battery.
When installed, the HDD appears at /wrk as project space.

When I boot Clonezilla there are visibility problems with this
ultrabay HDD as described in the OP.

All of my questions deal with the drives loaded into the ultrabay and then logically mounted by a very happy linux on the other HDD
within the main laptop body.

Cheers,
~~~ 0;-Dan