Hi guys,

I bought a brand new Fujitsu-Siemens Esprimo laptop (it had no operating system supplied with it) and decided to install Linux on it as I've had enough of WhineDos over the years and can't face the prospect of Vista.

Anyway, I can't seem to get any flavor of Linux to see my c drive. SUSE 10.2 reports there isn't one; Fedora 8 can't see it either, and neither does Slax when run from the CD rom drive. Initially I thought it might be a hardware failure, but an original 8 year old M$ Win2k disc installs fine and has no problem seeing the hard drive!

Any suggestions gratefully recieved, but please try to avoid overly technical language. Thanks!

Boot up with a live cd and run the command /sbin/lspci -v. post info on the harddrive controller. There is a chance there is no module for it. Or like in Fedora it maybe supported but the anaconda installer does not have a module for it.

You may be able to get the info from the command booting the Fedora install disc in rescue mode. Not sure if lspci is default on installer rescue mode disc. To boot rescue mode type ' linux rescue ' a boot option.

You can see if the bios will let you set the controller to say legacy IDE or pata mode if it is a sata controller.

Brian

Thanks, Brian.

I've run the command and got this lot in response. As you will have gathered from my user name, none of it means anything to me. BTW, I'm afraid the bios seems to be very basic and there's no to configure it as anything other than SATA.
Here's the output from the search query or whatever you call it in its entirity:


00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0671
Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH: Unknown device 1125
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64M]
Capabilities: [c0] AGP version 3.5

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS AGP Port (virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
I/O behind bridge: 00009000-00009fff
Memory behind bridge: d4000000-d40fffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: c0000000-cfffffff

00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0968 (rev 01)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev 01) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS5513 EIDE Controller (A,B step)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 128, IRQ 9
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at 1000 [size=16]
Capabilities: [58] Power Management version 2

00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
Memory at d4204000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
Memory at d4205000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH: Unknown device 1125
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 7
Memory at d4206000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [58] #0a [2100]

00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 191 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev 02)
Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH: Unknown device 1125
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 4
Memory at d4407000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
I/O ports at 1080 [size=128]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

00:05.0 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 1183 (rev 03) (prog-if 8f [Master SecP SecO PriP PriO])
Subsystem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 1183
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5
I/O ports at 1058 [size=8]
I/O ports at 104c [size=4]
I/O ports at 1050 [size=8]
I/O ports at 1048 [size=4]
I/O ports at 1020 [size=16]
Capabilities: [58] Power Management version 2

00:06.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] PCI-to-PCI bridge (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0
Memory behind bridge: d4100000-d41fffff
Capabilities: [b0] #0d [0000]
Capabilities: [c0] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [d0] #10 [0141]
Capabilities: [f4] Power Management version 2

00:07.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] PCI-to-PCI bridge (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=4d, subordinate=4e, sec-latency=0
I/O behind bridge: 00003000-00004fff
Memory behind bridge: dc000000-dfffffff
Capabilities: [b0] #0d [0000]
Capabilities: [c0] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [d0] #10 [0141]
Capabilities: [f4] Power Management version 2

00:0f.0 Class 0403: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 7502
Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH: Unknown device 1125
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 3
Memory at d4200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

00:1f.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] PCI-to-PCI bridge (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0
Capabilities: [d0] #10 [0141]
Capabilities: [a0] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [f4] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [70] #0d [0000]

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 6351 (rev 10) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH: Unknown device 1125
Flags: 66Mhz, medium devsel, IRQ 9
BIST result: 00
Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at d4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
I/O ports at 9000 [size=128]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [50] AGP version 3.0

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc.: Unknown device 001c (rev 01)
Subsystem: Atheros Communications, Inc.: Unknown device 3067
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 9
Memory at d4100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [60] #10 [0011]
Capabilities: [90] #11 [0000]

I hope this is clearer to you than it is to me!!

CC.

I google a bit and seems the controller chipset is bugging with the kernel module it would use. Not sure how to help from here.

Brian

It also appears that some Distro's have not enabled the sis5513 module in their kernels ... without this module being loaded your IDE controller will not be loaded and the HDD detected.

Googling shows that at least Ubuntu has done this.

They may have disabled it due to stability issues ... ???