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Andrew Chapman 11-14-2006 08:18 PM
2nd SATA drive and BIOS
 
I decided to install a second SATA hard drive on my Windows PC, and install Suse Linux on the second drive.

In BIOS, advanced set-up/ IDE configuration was set to SATA primary, PATA secondary. The boot configuration was DVD drive first then the first hard drive. When it's like this neither Windows nor Linux (with a live CD) seem to see the second hard drive.

So I changed the setting to SATA only. Now Windows does see the second drive and offers to format it ( which I refuse obviously). But now the boot configuration changes itself to boot from the first hard drive followed by the second hard drive, and it won't boot from the DVD drive.

What do I do?

Thanks,

Andrew

MasterC 11-14-2006 08:47 PM
Sounds like a bug in the BIOS from your description. What mobo?

Let me say it back to you how I read your setup:

2 hard drives, 1 attached to Primary IDE (set to master) and 1 set to SATA 1. Both drives are recognized in the BIOS as hard drives. The problem is that Both LiveCD(DVD)s and Windows are incapable of seeing the second hard drive (assumingly formatted with ext3)?

Is that correct? If so, sounds like a buggy BIOS... Are you sure the LiveCD is unable to see the drive, or is it just not mounting it? Windows probably won't be able to see the drive (or it might, but not recognize the filesystem) without a few tools (explore2fs was the one I think I used to use).

Cool

Andrew Chapman 11-15-2006 01:02 AM
If I go part way through the installation procedure with Yast it offers to partition the first hard drive and makes no mention of the second. Possibly it does see it in some sense - am not sure.

Motherboard:
Quote:
Your computer contains the ECS 915P-M3 motherboard. The ECS 915P-M3 mainboard is based on Intel® 915P and Intel® ICH6 chipset for optimal system efficiency. Designed to fit the advanced Intel® Pentium Prescott LGA775 processor.
The BIOS is American Megatrends v02.58.

The PC already had a SATA-1 hard drive. Am adding a second, which is SATA-2.

So far as I know the new one is unformatted. At any rate, it's just out of the box: a Samsung Spinpoint 250GB.

Windows does see it when I change the BIOS setting to 'SATA only' (advanced set-up/IDE configuration) - but then I lose the ability to boot from the optical drive. So am stuck!

Andrew Chapman 11-15-2006 12:22 PM
A friend of mine made the following suggestion:

Quote:
I would suggest "replacing" your windows drive with your new hard drive and having it setup with Sata and Pata, with boot from dvd first. This way Suse should install itself cleanly on your new hard drive. Then plugging in your windows drive as your SECOND hard drive and booting the machine, with Suse being on the 1st hard drive it boots it should boot into Suse, then go into YAST and run the boot loader configuration tool, this should allow you to install the Grub bootloader and allow you to boot the machine in either Suse or Windows.
What do you think of this?

He also says that the optical drive will be a PATA device which explains the problem. Thinks I must have been sold a scaled-down BIOS.

Thanks for your help.

MasterC 11-17-2006 03:09 PM
That sounds reasonable. It would at least keep you from accidently totalling your windows install.

Cool


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