Installing SuSE.9.2 pro on a new SATA Hard disk

Hi,

As an inexperienced Linux user, I would be very grateful for any assistance Members can offer regarding the following problem:

I operate my computer using a SATA hard disk caddie. I currently run a WinXP/SuSE 9.2 Pro dual boot system with few problems (300Gb Maxtor Diamond 10 SATA) but recently have been unable to install Linux Kernel upgrades via YaST.

To get over this I’ve decided to remove Linux from my current SATA hard disk and change instead to WinXP & SuSE using separate SATA disks in separate caddies. I’ve obtained the necessary HDD (200Gb Maxtor Diamond 10 SATA) and caddie and have tried to install SuSE 9.2 Pro (as a pre-9.3 Pro try out) but without success.

Steps completed/taken so far:

(1) SuSE HDD into caddie – OK no problem.

(2) Caddie into machine HDD recognised by bios – OK No problem.

(3) Tried to install SuSE9.2 Pro from company supplied media (DVD1) – gets as far as the YaST installation screen which throws up the following messages for Partitioning having probed my system:

“Error: No hard disks were found for the installation. Please check your hardware!”

Message displayed under Partitioning heading:

“No automatic proposal possible. Specify mount points manually in the ‘Partitioner’ dialogue.”

But. On clicking the Partitioning header:

“No disks found, please use the update CD for installation.”

Needless to say, I’m using the full SuSE 9.2 installation and have not access to a update CD (trying to install via the supplied multi-CD set doesn’t work either).

(4) Used Partition Magic 8.0 via floppies to format HDD as NTFS created small primary partition 250Mb (hidden) + Large primary partition for remainder of disk (active).

(5) Repeat of (3)

(6) Used Partition Magic 8.0 via floppies to re-format Large primary partition for remainder of disk (active) as Linux Ext 3 (active).

(7) Repeat of (3)

(8) Repeat of (4) and installed WinXP successfully on large partition. Resized large partition to approx 7.0 Gb for WinXP with remainder as unallocated space (with the ultimate intention of deleting the WinXP partition after successful Linux installation).

(9) Repeat of (3) + under Booting option YaST fails to show the WinXP system as a booting option.

(10) Loaded Partition Magic 8.0 under Windows and run to install new operating system.

(11) Repeat of (9)

I'm afraid I don’t have the knowledge to understand what’s going (or not going) on and would be very grateful if anyone could offer reasons and advice for this problem.

Regards

Martin Parker

Hi Martin,

I'm constantly fascinated by how far some parts of linux are ahead of Windows and how far some are behind. Regrettably your situation indicates that Suse 9.2 doesnt have support for your sata drive/sata chipset. This is possibly why you have experienced some problems with later kernel installation. If you could post back with your sata controller name (run the following from a terminal)
lshal | grep -i sata
which basically means list the hardware abstraction layer (lshal) and get instances of the word "sata". This should enable me to see whats been going in with the controller (its rarely the HDD) in recent kernel modifications.
Cheers!
Chris

Hi Chris,

Many thanks for your advice. Please understand that I’ve really no idea what I’m doing, but I typed the following into Konsole under SuSE 9.2 (without quotes):

“|shal | grep –i sata” (enter)

- where ‘|’ is the funny straight line keyboard character and not ‘1’ ‘I’ or ‘l’ (lowercase L)

This produced the following response (again without quotes””):

“bash: syntax error near unexpected token `|’ “ (exact quote)

I realise I’ve probably mistyped character(s) can you clarify again please in simple terms (it’s turning into a very long week!).

Just to say again that although I still have the dual boot WinXP/SuSE 9.2 pro system, I definitely don’t want to keep this and I do want to load it onto the new SATA hard drive without WinXP Pro.

I don’t know, but would it assist you to know that I’m running a GIGA-BYTE GA-K8NSNXP-939 motherboard?

Also, in order to get WinXP Pro to recognise the SATA disk I have to load a file from a FDD. I’ve had a look at the FDD in Windows Explorer and the following is taken from one of the 4 files on the disk


“; Extra Registry Entries

[Strings]
DiskName = "Intel Application Accelerator Driver"
*PNP0600.DeviceDesc = "Intel Integrated RAID"
HDCClassName = "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24DF&CC_0104.DeviceDesc = "Intel(R) 82801ER SATA RAID Controller"

INTEL="Intel" “

Hope this helps and look forward very much to hearing from you.

Regards

Martin

Hi martin,

Almost! Its actually
LSHAL | grep -i sata

but all in lower case of course. Changing the | to an l for lima should run it. However you provided the chipset so I was able to check whether its supported and it certainly should be. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to install linux onto it. Therefore I recommend you check BIOS settings and make sure everything is as it should be. Because you have two sata drives I am assuming that the installation cannot "see" them becuase of the way they are configured. I cant offer better advice I'm afraid. All I'd suggest is to backup as best you can and play around with BIOS and the sata controller program (if it has one).
Regards
Chris