I'm trying to install Linux Mint on a PC, I'm trying to set up. I've done many things with this PC, in the past. It should be straight forward. I got the bright idea, to try to insert another hard drive to double the space. I've removed it now, and swapped the power cord to another power outlet for the hard drive.

This appeared to be having an install error on /dev/sdb, right after trying to install. By the way, this is Linux Mint 21.1, which should be the latest version. I remember downloading from kernel.org. Don't know if that's closest, but it's in the right country.

Appearently, on this PC, which by the way, has 2 GB RAM, but still runs it well enough for cinnamon, this PC, keeps having a hard drive error, and failing to install the OS. One error, that looks consistant, is CHECK_POWER_MODE. The text is scrolling by so fast, I can't pinpoint that it's the most realevant error for sure, but I believe it was.

There is also something when it first boots, which says failed to mount /dev/sda (forget which partition), on /dev/cdrom, which is the first thing it does.

I'm trying now, to see if it is working or not. I don't believe it is. What could be going on? What test should I do to find out? I believe it's a hardware issue, but not sure.

A PC that supports no more than 2GB RAM is likely to support only PATA. On PATA drives, jumper settings matter. Wrong jumper setting can cause anything from outright failure to recognize, to weird behavioral anomalies, to no problem at all.

Oh! There are jumpers on these, but none were installed. Didnt know about PATA, really at all, or missed it in textbooks. What is the difference between that and SATA?... I say in post just before research after post...

Can they take IDE jumpers? If so, i might have them. I should be more than capable with little help, is what gets me. Im used to working with IDE, is all. Its not that i dont know a little about SATA or SCSI, especially at work or school. But this is first real life issue.

Cant tell yet, but maybe what ive been calling IDE WAS PATA? If so, nope, theyre not. They have jumpers, but they are red cables, and are tiny. They use, i believe, 4 pin power, if they are plugged in right. They are not grey ribbons, but thats what i call a ribbon. Color is what it is, with no mistake. There is one supplied, but i found the computer with red cable and i think 4 pin power that looks like i called IDE power connector. Cant promise it has same cords as before now.

SATA drives use thicker narrow cables and don't require jumpers. Newer PATA drives require thin 40pin/80 conductor ribbon cables to work at full capacity, and commonly work only as a slave drive to a master-jumpered drive if no jumper is installed. Most newer PATA drives have jumper settings described on the label. They were (a) PITA before that labeling started appearing.

"IDE" means Integrated Drive Electronics. "IDE" drives use a Parallel ATA interface (hence PATA), distinguishing them from SATA drives, which use a Serial ATA interface (hence SATA). Before "IDE" drives appeared by that name, there were MFM and RLL HDs that had to be matched to supporting external controllers in ISA slots, and had to be manually configured in the motherboard BIOS that for many years could only support limited combinations of CHS (cylinders, heads, sectors) and so couldn't support newer, larger drives without installing motherboard BIOS upgrades first. There also were SCSI drives before "IDE", where the concept of IDE was already employed. SATA drives and NVMEs are also "IDE" drives.

Oh! Thats what the difference is! Ive been calling PATA IDE since my first hard drive change and no one told me. So unless newer PATA uses the same cable, also by what ive just read, its definately SATA.

Wondering if cable(s) or drive went bad. Remind me of how to use power supply tester. That might be next step. Cant access until tommorrow.

Looked up using a power supply tester, and I think I understand. Also, was detected in BIOS, which appears not to support UEFI, but not sure, and even though errors, could see in the partion step of install, for both hard drives.

Now I'll wind down...

So now I ended up suspecting that the power supply is bad, based off of the word "power", in the error I "think" is the main error. Also, because no matter what drive configuration I used, nothing seems to work, as far as I can tell.

I bought a power supply tester, just for this type of stuff. I know how to use a voltimeter in general, however, this use is a little beyond what I should even try to memorize, and too dangerous. I guess, according to others, what I'm worried about in certain cases, is static electricity of high electricity parameters. I do have a grounding bracelet, but I think that with high voltages, it may or may not work.

So, the readout:

When plugged into one of the power connectors for a drive, but not the CD one:
When plugged into the other two (not CD drive connector):
Don't know how to interpret for sure, but I think this means bad power supply, at least 2/3 leftover connectors, in which case, if I wanted to fix the simplest way (not cheapest), replace the power supply. However, due to that high parameter static, I feel I should not attempt this yet, without having more experience with problems I've never had yet. I can do enough to be dangerous. I do NOT have to do everything, especially with hardware. They taught me how to read the power supply tester in school, however, I've forgotten. I need to reread the material, which requires a purchase. I searched, and I "think" that these should be the first parameters, but it wasn't telling me for sure, or in a way I could understand.

There are other parameters, but I didn't think they were realevant yet.

It might be very helpful if you let us know:

• mainbard model used in this PC
• old hard drive model used in this PC
• new hard drive model used in this PC

Old mainboards with BIOS (not UEFI) may have hard drive capacity limits both for PATA and SATA.
New SATA hard drives may be incompatible with very old SATA controllers or must be set for compatibility by jumper or vendor software.

Attached pictures show a HDD with PATA aka IDE interface (2×20 shrouded header) and a HDD with SATA interface.

SATA HDDs may have jumper blocks e.g. to limit a SATA 3.0 GB/s HDD to SATA 1.5 GB/s for compatiblity with very old SATA controllers which only accept SATA 1.5 GB/s devices.
Mainboards for common desktop computers exist those only accepts 2 GiB RAM and provide SATA ports (in addition to PATA ports), e.g. Microstar MS-7222.

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Plugged the drives into an identical machine. Both drives. Same issue, though there's also a DID_(something) error, I noticed. Perhaps I need to delete and totally redo the data on these drives now that they're in a new machine. These drives might somehow be both what you call PATA, which is appearantly also, what I call IDE, according to the Internet with Google Home, and SATA. I think that may be true, upon another look at them. They are plugged into SATA, but I wonder if they needed the other power plug? What's strange, is even if so, origionally, it was working in the other machine with this type of power plug, but that was using Windows 10. I don't want Windows 10 on there. Or maybe, untested, but both power supplies could be damaged, and maybe orgionally it was giving too much power, and that's why it actually worked, due to a short? It's maybe a possibility.

OK. Yes, it's one of those mainboards - Definately has limited support for PATA, yes, PATA was what I called IDE Definately. PATA is probably a new name for it. I'll first try to wipe everything and see if that restart works, but probably not. I would expect to find out in about 30 minutes. When next I MUST open it up, I'll see about telling you the hard drive type. I believe I saw the model printed on it.

These are the origional drives they came to me with. All I was attempting to do, was make one machine more powerful, by adding two hard drives into one machine. It worked before, and now it seems like nothing works. But I never installed Linux Mint on these PCs before. I have previously had Mandriva Linux 2010.1 on one of them. I don't even have the software for that anymore though. I could get a basic machine up and running, but simply cannot do anything useful with it anymore. I can't get the packages anymore from the Internet, so the whole thing is garbage now. Thus, I moved onto more current distributions. I never became the expert I wanted at it, but came close with GUI tools. I was mostly using it for servers. One PC, used to be main2, my second server with Windows 10, and virtualbox, and 5 VMs, and the first, main1, with 5 VMs before, which is still at home and hooked up. The last tower, that I'm trying now, was bought and refurbished by me and then used for work at my Mom's business, and then again given back to me to do what I wished. All 3 towers came from Central Washington University, wherever they got it from, and then were bought to a local private refurbisher, who refurbished them and sold them to me. Then my use began there. Even for the ones I initially kept, I refurbished them again.