Slack not recognize hard drive
 

Hello!
Lately I was trying to install Slackware 10.2 on a computer with a running Windows installation, but there was the following problem. After booting from the bootable cd, the system does not recognize the hard drive. It recognizes the cd and dvd writer as /dev/hda and /dev/hdb respectively. I tried booting with bare.i, bareacpi.i and sata.i. No resuilt. Here is the bios info about the hard drive:
Primary IDE Master Hard Disk
Vendor ST3120827AS
Size 120GB
LBA mode supported
Ata/ide configuration-Enhanced
PCI IDE BusMaster Disabled

the hd should be hda not the cdrw or whatever, check your setup!

try fdisk -l to see your partions and hopefully your drives.
but if your bios really says your hdd is primary master and slackware recognizes your cdrw as /dev/hda ( which is primary master ) I guess you have a problem.

yes, I know I have a problem with installing Slackware on that machine and I wish I could fix it. What does "check your setup" mean?
I tried to see the partition table with fdisk, but of course it says the partition table cannot be read because it tries to read the partition table of the cd drive, not that of the hard drive.
Do you have any idea what I should do?
Below I posted you exactly what the bios says. Bios recognizes the hard drive as primary master, but linux does not. The machine besides works ok in Windows.
The machine has been bought by the institute I work in with installed operating system - Windows XP professional. Is it possible to be some kind of protection by the firm that supplied it, so that no other operating system can be installed? I don't believe so.

Having optical drives on the first (E)IDE interface (i.e. hda and/or hdb) is not, in itself, a problem. Plenty of laptops ship built like this.

Did you try the suggested "fdisk -l" ???. Your response above is ambiguous.
I like to have a Knoppix laying around - try that, and see what it thinks of the disk layout.

Today I tried installing Slackware on the same machine and on 2 other machines in the institute, and the problem is everywhere the same-the hard drive is not recognized and /dev/hda is the cd or dvd drive. "fdisk -l" is completely silent, it gives no output, I just get another bash prompt.
I really have no idea what to do. I have not experienced such problems installing slackware on other machines :(

wow! sorry to hear! tried slack 11.0 yet? ..... gotta go out now sorry, not sure what else to suggest :(

Have you tried using one of the other kernels? There might be a problem with Slackware picking up your hardware. Instead of the default bare.i, you could try scsi.i or one of the others.

I have tried scsi.i and sata.i with the same result

Alright, do you know what kind of hdds you have?
I mean sata or standard ide drives. Can you have a look inside your computer to check wiring?

The only other idea I have, is that you could try to boot huge26.s kernel, since it has a lot of drivers compiled in.
It looks like your harddrives are connected to some kind of controler and just not detected by slackware. Do you have more exact information about the used hardware and maybe the disksubsystem you use ( like for example controller, if they are in a raid or something like that) ?

This is what BIOS says about the hard drive :

Primary IDE Master Hard Disk
Vendor ST3120827AS
Size 120GB
LBA mode supported
Ata/ide configuration-Enhanced
PCI IDE BusMaster Disabled

The computer works well under windows and I do not see any reason for checking wiring. Unfortunately I cannot look inside the box for it is still under warranty :(.

Hi,

Since you have tried the other kernels, why don't you download Slax. It is a livecd and you can use the os to diagnose the system.

Once you boot the slax as root;

Btw, you could use the above with the slackware install cd to see what is recognized. Maybe your hd is /dev/hdc or /dev/hdd. As for the comment about warranty, crap! You have every right to check the inside of the box. Do take the system back to blow the dust out?

do you have a pci ide card or some other non standard setup? I once seen a setup were the ide cable connected to the sound card lol. your problem is one reason why I never buy name brand pc's.

ST3120827AS is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA NCQ so most definetly you must use the 'sata.i' or 'huge26.s' to get support for it. If you say that you have Windoze installed on that PC and it's working that means your wiring must be correct and you're hard drive is connected as Primary Master otherwise Windoze would had not accept beeing installed. First I would suggest to get Slackware 11 and try with the 'sata.i' kernel if you want a 2.4.x kernel or 'huge26.s' if you want to have a 2.6.x kernel. There are alot of programs you can use under Windoze to give you a detailed list of your hardware. One that I know is 'Aida' and you can get it from SoftPedia. Download that under windows, unzip it, start the program and start 'looking into your computer' for anything "suspicious" related to your hard drive or hard drive controllers. Even better you could generate a report with Aida, or something like that, and post it here for further assistance. Good luck.