Hi,

I hope i can clarify my situation: My prefered hard drive is the more recent type, SATA I believe. This vibrated on the 1st 2 occasions i booted up after the mobo respnded with 2 beeps on each time. But a black scrn message said something to the effect of it didnt recognise my os or it couldn't mount my drive. After i had fiddled about with it a bit, there was no longer a beep on the third boot, and neither of two 'SATA drives' would vibrate although I can acces them with another pc.

When I substitute them for the older type hdd, 'IDE' i beleive, Their is still no beep, but it goes ahead and loads the Ubuntu 10.04 Lynx os normally.

Can you asist me in establishing my prefered SATA hdd?

Thanks for your time.

(This was my 1st post):
my new pc passed the peep twice and i could feel the my pre-existing hdd vibrating, but a black scrn message said something to the effect of it didnt recognise my os, lynx. On the 3rd boot up, it didn't beep and my hdd didn't vibrate.

I sbstituted my hdd and booted up; it still didnt peep, but went ahead and loaded the lynx os from the different drive.

My pre-existing hdd with all my stuff on it can be accessed. with a usb thingy on another pc?

Can you asist me in establishing my pre-existing hdd?

Thanks for your time.

By "lynx" I'm assuming you mean Linux. To access your data from the previous hdd will require the use of an external hdd enclosure that can accomodate whatever interface your old hdd is. Like if it's SATA interface you need an external hdd enclosure with SATA interface. If it's IDE interface hdd then you need a hdd enclosure for IDE. The enclosure plugs into a USB port and you might be able to access and save your data from the old hdd that way. Sounds to me like it's gone bad. Or at least the Master Boot Record (MBR) is messed up, which can be fixed. But first get a hdd enclosure that you can use with your old hdd.

2 short beeps is a POST error (Power On Self Test) We need to know exactly what the message on the screen says, including the error code within the message to know what's happening. Apparently different BIOS manufacturers can have different meanings for the codes! I notice that you can get different answers if you Google "Computer beep codes" Sheesh! One states that 2 beeps with AMIBIOS means a parity error in memory, Award and Phoenix may or may not have a 2 beep code. All very confusing! Anyway, what exactly is the message on your screen when it fails?

Play Bonny!

Thanks for your interest.

The mssge is

Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press enter.

However i can feel there is no power spinning this drive which is perceptible when connected to another pc.

It sounds like it's possible SATA has been disabled in your bios. You might want to enter bios and check that. Sometimes bios will reset itself to defaults because of what it considers conflicts.

We're talking about internal drives connected directly to your motherboard, right? The system I'm using just now has a normal 160Gb IDE drive with windows on it (seldom used) and a 250Gb SATA running Ubuntu. Both are identified in the POST messages when booting. Can you see all your connected disks?

OR... Are we talking about external drives connected via USB? Internal drives have separate power connectors, external drives may not work as not all USB ports can supply power as well as data, sometimes you need a two USB port connector cable or an external PSU for them to work.

Play Bonny!

Quick question. Are you using the same cable on both PCs? It seems like it's either cable or bios settings. The drive must be good if you can access it on another PC. I have heard of bad cables with SATA. Some manufacturers use a different molding composition on the ends and they don't make up well with the motherboard connectors. But do check the bios settings and make sure SATA is enabled. Also, some boards do not permit the use of both IDE channels along with SATA drives. Have you added something to IDE channel number 2?

Thanks for your help.

Here's an update; I'm almost back to sq 1!

I've got back my old post beep. However at boot, my display runs:

Verifying pool Data....
Boot from CD
Disk Boot Failure, Insert system disc and press enter.


I can load my os from a live CD but it doesn't show my Hdd.

My BIOS/CMOS reveals;

IDE CHANNEL 0 MASTER: NONE
IDE CHANNEL 0 SLAVE: NONE
IDE CHANNEL 1 MASTER: NONE
IDE CHANNEL 1 SLAVE: DVD/CD
IDE CHANNEL 2 MASTER NONE
" " " NONE

NB: my SATA is using an IDE adapter on the mobo

I can view my oses and home dir data by attaching my hdd to a 2nd pc with a usb addapter and auxillary psu

My spec are

Winfast 760GXK8MC Series 54W1P23 100805
AMD Sempron (tm) 2800+
1gb ram

Thanks for your time.

Well, your system isn't seeing the drive at all. I'm intrigued by the SATA to IDE converter. I'd suspect this part as I assume an ordinary IDE drive is seen OK by your Motherboard? (otherwise the Mobo becomes suspect too!)

What make is the converter, where did you get it, what type or Part No does it have? SATA drives have no master/slave set up as each drive has a separate controller channel- However...
I notice that Maplin, in the UK, has a converter, Order Code N40HN, which looks like it would do (Your profile doesn't identify where you live so this may be of no use.)

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...C=SO&U=Strat15

The switch no doubt does the master/slave bit and there appears to be a jack socket which may be used to supply power or you'd need a power converter from your PSU.

As per SharpyWarpy, I've had duff SATA cables as well.

Play Bonny!

Okay so you don't have a SATA capable board. If you can get the adaptor working, or any type of adaptor from SATA to IDE, it's not going to have the speed of SATA, it's just going to run at IDE speeds. So I'd recommend getting a SATA motherboard. IDE is considered obsolete technology now.

So, from your earlier post, it sounds like you have used a CD to boot a Linux installer, which was able to access the SATA drives, because they looked 'normal' in some sense. It then installed the Linux OS on the SATA drives, using either native IDE drivers, built-in drivers for the adapter/converter hardware, or some standard SATA drivers.
The BIOS, however, is not so smart, and is unable to detect/use the drives connected to the adapter/converter. Even though there is a bootable OS on the drive(s), the BIOS is unable to detect this, and emits the message(s) that you are reporting.
As I see it, there are a few things you can try:
1. Just boot from a CD or floppy or flash drive. With luck, it can use grub to chainload the grub on your SATA drive.
2. Figure out how to coerce the BIOS to see the SATA drive. This probably requires using a different adapter than the one you already have. Perhaps there is an newer BIOS for your motherboard, that will see the SATA drives. Low probability of success, but not too much risk.
3. Put the /boot partition on a IDE drive. Simple, clean, easy.
4. Use IDE drive(s) for everything. I don't know if you can still get them, but it would be the cleanest solution. My local supplier shows IDE drives up to 500 GB still available.
5. PCI SATA controller. If it has a BIOS on the card, it may provide enough smarts to allow you to boot from it.

It is quite unlikely that the present arrangement uses the full speed of the SATA drives, so you aren't getting much advantage from this 'solution'.

--- rod.