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Internal Hard Drive issue

Hello,

My problem is that I can't get to format and mount an internal hard drive. My computer has 2 internal hard drives. I installed Fedora Core 5 on one of them, which was the only hard drive that the installation recognized. I can't get to format and mount the other hard drive since I don't know which device it is in /dev. This hard drive is a SATA II. Btw, I don't have any other OS installed in my computer.

My kernel is:

2.6.15-1.2054_FC5

I hope one of you might have any ideas,

Thanks in advance,

Alfredo

Hi
I have a system which sounds similar, but I don't think it's SATA II. Try an look on /dev/sda & /dev/sdb
go fdisk /dev/sda or fdisk /dev/sdb then type p

nigelc

Are you sure that the hard drive is physically installed correctly and working right?

Can the BIOS recognize it? If not, then the OS won't be able to...

Also check the output of dmesg

Look in /proc/ide

Hello,

I looked at the output of dmesg but it wasn't quite useful. I don't know exactly what I should look for there. I also checked in /proc/ide and all I seemed to have found is the CD-RW/DVD-ROM.

I'm not sure if the BIOS is actually recognizing the hard drive, but I opened the computer and the hard drives are there. When the computer boots, all it seems to recognize is a Logical Volume whose size is the size of one of the internal hard drives, hard drive in which Linux is installed. I am not sure if the other internal hard drive is properly installed, but all of the cables look connected.

Btw, I hope the next output helps:

$ ls /dev/sd*
/dev/sda /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2

Thank you,
Alfredo

Go into the BIOS, and write down the information on all of the detected drives.

Also try posting the output of dmesg and mount

Hello,

The output of dmesg is too long to post it here, it exceeds the maximum number of characters allowed. Though, I paste here some of the lines I thought should be useful as well as the entire output of mount:

dmesg part:

SCSI subsystem initialized
Fusion MPT SAS Host driver 3.03.07
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:05:08.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
mptbase: Initiating ioc0 bringup
ioc0: SAS1068: Capabilities={Initiator}
scsi0 : ioc0: LSISAS1068, FwRev=00063200h, Ports=1, MaxQ=511, IRQ=16
Vendor: Dell Model: VIRTUAL DISK Rev: 1028
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
SCSI device sda: 976562176 512-byte hdwr sectors (500000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 08
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 976562176 512-byte hdwr sectors (500000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 08
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through
sda: sda1 sda2
sd 0:8:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
libata version 1.20 loaded.
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: version 1.05
GSI 17 sharing vector 0xB1 and IRQ 17
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[C] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xCC78 ctl 0xCC72 bmdma 0xCC40 irq 17
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xCC60 ctl 0xCC5A bmdma 0xCC48 irq 17
ata1: SATA port has no device.
scsi1 : ata_piix
ata2: SATA port has no device.
scsi2 : ata_piix
device-mapper: 4.5.0-ioctl (2005-10-04) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem.
EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: dm-0: orphan cleanup on readonly fs
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 20930574
ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 20933277

mount output:

$ mount
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
automount(pid2107) on /net type autofs (rw,fd=4,pgrp=2107,minproto=2,maxproto=4)

Thanks,

Alfredo

Alfredo,
Does the bios show 3 drives? It should show the cdrom/cvd & the other 2 ones. The bios thinks they are ide drives. Linux thinks the sata drives are scsi. Its says sda twice the second one should be sdb. The drive could be bad.

good luck
nigelc

Hey,

Here is what I see every time the computer boots:

HBA ID LUN VENDOR PRODUCT REVISION CAPACITY
0 0 0 Dell VirtualDisk 1028 476837 MB
0 - - LSILogic SAS1068-IR 0.06.50.00 -

Another thing I noticed that could be a problem is the next configuration in the BIOS setup. The computer has always been configured that way, I haven't changed anything here:

IDE Primary Drive 0: CD-ROM Reader
IDE Primary Drive 1: OFF
SATA PORT 0: OFF
SATA PORT 1: OFF
SATA PORT 2: OFF
SATA PORT 3: OFF

Any help?

Thank you,
Alfredo

Well the LSILogic SAS1068 supports SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) hard drives as well as SATA hard drives. From what I can gather mptbase is the module for this chipset. Since no drives are being detected on the SATA ports I think your drive might be SAS. I am throwing out a SWAG at this point that you need to enable the SATA port where your second drive is attached and see if it shows up in the dmesg output.

Did you install the second drive recently?
If yes, your BIOS seems misconfigured. I have no idea what kind of BIOS you have, but try finding a menu "chipset configuration" (or something similar, it should be near the configuration for CPU) where you should be able to switch on/off your IDE/SATA controller on the mainboard. Enable all of them.

I didn't install the drive recently, it came with the computer. Though, since I bought it without any OS, they probabably didn't configure my BIOS for the second hard drive. I activated all of the SATA ports in the BIOS and then run dmesg again, here is the output. In past posts the dmesg output of the computer before I activated all of the SATA ports is shown:

SCSI subsystem initialized
Fusion MPT SAS Host driver 3.03.07
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:05:08.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
mptbase: Initiating ioc0 bringup
ioc0: SAS1068: Capabilities={Initiator}
scsi0 : ioc0: LSISAS1068, FwRev=00063200h, Ports=1, MaxQ=511, IRQ=16
Vendor: Dell Model: VIRTUAL DISK Rev: 1028
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
SCSI device sda: 976562176 512-byte hdwr sectors (500000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 08
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 976562176 512-byte hdwr sectors (500000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 08
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through
sda: sda1 sda2
sd 0:8:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
libata version 1.20 loaded.
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: version 1.05
GSI 17 sharing vector 0xB1 and IRQ 17
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[C] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xCC78 ctl 0xCC72 bmdma 0xCC40 irq 17
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xCC60 ctl 0xCC5A bmdma 0xCC48 irq 17
ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xCC7F
ata1: disabling port
scsi1 : ata_piix
ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xCC67
ata2: disabling port
scsi2 : ata_piix
device-mapper: 4.5.0-ioctl (2005-10-04) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
security: 3 users, 6 roles, 1161 types, 135 bools, 1 sens, 256 cats
security: 55 classes, 38679 rules
SELinux: Completing initialization.
SELinux: Setting up existing superblocks.
SELinux: initialized (dev dm-0, type ext3), uses xattr
SELinux: initialized (dev tmpfs, type tmpfs), uses transition SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev debugfs, type debugfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev selinuxfs, type selinuxfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev mqueue, type mqueue), uses transition SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev hugetlbfs, type hugetlbfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev devpts, type devpts), uses transition SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev eventpollfs, type eventpollfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev inotifyfs, type inotifyfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev tmpfs, type tmpfs), uses transition SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev futexfs, type futexfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev pipefs, type pipefs), uses task SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev sockfs, type sockfs), uses task SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev cpuset, type cpuset), not configured for labeling
SELinux: initialized (dev proc, type proc), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev bdev, type bdev), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev rootfs, type rootfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev sysfs, type sysfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev usbfs, type usbfs), uses genfs_contexts
hw_random hardware driver 1.0.0 loaded
tg3.c:v3.49 (Feb 2, 2006)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:01:00.0 to 64
eth0: Tigon3 [partno(BCM95751) rev 4201 PHY(5750)] (PCI Express) 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet 00:18:8b:12:9f:6f
eth0: RXcsums[1] LinkChgREG[1] MIirq[1] ASF[0] Split[0] WireSpeed[1] TSOcap[1]
eth0: dma_rwctrl[76180000]
sd 0:8:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.3
GSI 18 sharing vector 0xB9 and IRQ 18
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.0[A] -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.0 to 64

I haven't been able to solve the problem, above is the whole explanation of what I've been trying. In addittion to this, I have physically opened the computer and found both of the hard drives, I switched the ports to which the drives were connected to and the OS loaded anyway, I guess that means that the problem is not the hardware.

Any help?

Thanks,
Alfredo.

You probably have 2 identical drives, those drives are hardware mirrored as a VIRTUAL DISK from Dell. You don't need to activate the SATA drives or the IDE in the server bios. They are connected through a SAS 5 card. You might have to hit Ctrl-C to configure the SAS card but it should be already done from the factory & setup for mirroring. I'm not using Redhat but I am still trying to figure out still how to access or configure the VIRTUAL DISK that is created by that SAS card. Instead of /dev/sda and /dev/sdb it must be a different /dev location. Hope that helps a little and someone knows the answer to that. Isn't it basically just a RAID set? Any help would be great.

Try using the OpenManage disk to format the drive set. I selected Redhat Enterprise 4 and setup the partitions using that. It only creates 1 partition instead of the 5 or 6 it asked for since I canceled out when it actaully asked for the Redhat disk but OpenManage did enough. Now I can access /dev/sda2 and do things. :) It left me with a 20GB primary partition and a 32MB Dell Utility partition. and 50GB unpartitioned space. That should get you rolling.

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