cannot find hard drive on linux install

Byrnascus · 08-22-2006, 10:18 PM

Alright, so I just got a new T60 from Lenovo and was wanting to dual boot with Windows and Linux. The first thing I did was resize the Windows partition to 20 gig using QTParted from a knoppix cd. Next, I make a linux and a linux swap partiton using fdisk still on a Knoppix boot, and everything seems to be going okay. I boot up the Slackware 10.2 install disk, run setup, and I get a message saying something like 'cannot find hard drive, make sure it it connected.' Those weren't the exact words, but something to that effect. At this point, I open a new terminal and try 'fdisk /dev/sda' and it gives me 'unable to open /dev/sda'. I have also tried installing Debian 3.1r2, but get the same problem. My hard disk is set up on SCSI, too. This problem is driving me crazy, and I can't find any solutions. Did I mess things up by using QTParted? If anyone has any advice, it would be much appreciated.

rickh · 08-22-2006, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Next, I make a linux and a linux swap partiton using fdisk still on a Knoppix boot, and everything seems to be going okay.

There must be a set of instructions someplace that says to do this ... Enough newbies sure try it. It's wrong. Use Windows utilities to destroy whatever partitions you made with Knoppix. Your Windows Disk Management screens should show the Windows partition and a bunch of free space. While you're there, create a FAT32 partition on half of that free space. That partition will eventually be shared between Windows and Linux. Now you should see a third of the disk, or so, is still free space.

Insert your Linux install disk, and install away. The installation process will take care of the partitioning. If you're going to install Debian, use Etch, not Sarge (3.1r2).

onebuck · 08-23-2006, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byrnascus

Alright, so I just got a new T60 from Lenovo and was wanting to dual boot with Windows and Linux. The first thing I did was resize the Windows partition to 20 gig using QTParted from a knoppix cd. Next, I make a linux and a linux swap partiton using fdisk still on a Knoppix boot, and everything seems to be going okay. I boot up the Slackware 10.2 install disk, run setup, and I get a message saying something like 'cannot find hard drive, make sure it it connected.' Those weren't the exact words, but something to that effect. At this point, I open a new terminal and try 'fdisk /dev/sda' and it gives me 'unable to open /dev/sda'. I have also tried installing Debian 3.1r2, but get the same problem. My hard disk is set up on SCSI, too. This problem is driving me crazy, and I can't find any solutions. Did I mess things up by using QTParted? If anyone has any advice, it would be much appreciated.

Hi,

First, what kernel are you booting the install with? You should choose the sata.i kernel. This kernel will have ide, atapi and sata support to allow an installation on mixed hardware.

To help in your installation, boot the knoppix LiveCD again. Open a terminal as root then;

Code:

#lsmod >knop_lsmod.txt           #save stdout
#lspci -vv >knop_lspci.txt       #very verbose output
#dmesg |grep hd >knop_hd.txt     #get hd information
#dmesg |grep sa >knop_sa.txt     #get device info
#dmesg |grep sc >knop_sc.txt     #get device info
#dmesg |grep eth >knop_eth.txt   #get eth device
#dmesg |grep wlan >knop_wlan.txt #wlan devices
#ifconfig -a >knop_ifconfig.txt  #get config info
#route -n >knop_route.txt        #route info

The above information should help on your Slackware installation, some will seem overkill but you never know. You could copy the information to another filesystem, print it or create interim storage ie; floppy,cd or even flash.

When you created the partitions using knoppix, did you write the partition information? Did you make/format the filesystem?

onebuck · 08-23-2006, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickh

There must be a set of instructions someplace that says to do this ... Enough newbies sure try it. It's wrong. Use Windows utilities to destroy whatever partitions you made with Knoppix. Your Windows Disk Management screens should show the Windows partition and a bunch of free space. While you're there, create a FAT32 partition on half of that free space. That partition will eventually be shared between Windows and Linux. Now you should see a third of the disk, or so, is still free space.

Insert your Linux install disk, and install away. The installation process will take care of the partitioning. If you're going to install Debian, use Etch, not Sarge (3.1r2).

Hi,

First, why use windows to create/delete linux partitions? If the OP used knoppix to create the partitions and even format the partitions then nothing should be wrong with the partitions.

As for creating that much HD space as a share partition is overkill from the linux point of view. Sure if you want to share across platforms that use ntfs a fat32 would be the safe way. The size should be decided by the user. As the user, partition size would be dictated by the share type of files.

Enough said! Partitions schemes are always a heated debate.

osbie · 08-23-2006, 08:59 AM

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Instal...e_ThinkPad_T60 some good hints about installs

and an answer to the same problem from here: http://www.gtishrine.com/t60.php

initial Installation:
First, install Gentoo from the distribution CDs. This may involve repartitioning your system so you can dual-boot, see the Gentoo documentation for initial installation details. If you attempt to reboot, the laptop will not come up successfully: the stock kernel is missing the AHCI SATA drivers (i.e. missing Kernel options CONFIG_SCSI_SATA and CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI) required and will complain that it can't mount the root partition. Listed below is a link to a complete, working T60 Kernel configuration for the latest stable 2.6.16-r9 Linux kernel.
Once you have a working, bootable machine based on the Kernel configuration here, one can next get other facilities on the box working.

or in bios switch sata to compatability mode.

more good pointers for you http://vizzzion.org/?id=t60

rickh · 08-23-2006, 10:47 AM

Quote:

First, why use windows to create/delete linux partitions? If the OP used knoppix to create the partitions and even format the partitions then nothing should be wrong with the partitions.

As for creating that much HD space as a share partition is overkill from the linux point of view.

I stand by my advice if the OP is a relative newbie to Linux, ... and Debian Etch is the best OS he could install.

Byrnascus · 08-26-2006, 09:13 AM

Hey, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that gave me a reply, and especially thanks to gwsandvik. All I needed to do was boot the sata.i kernel instead of the default. Now all that's left is to configure hardware, download drivers, etc.