1 Topic by Jason761

  • Jason761
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Topic: Problem locating hard drives.

Hi. I am using the live usb with the latest gparted. When i boot to the gparted software, i only see my usb drive listed under devices. I do not see my 2 sata internal hard drives. Both my hard drives are from WD. What's the problem?

2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

What is the output from the following three commands?

sudo parted -l
sudo fdisk -l -u
cat /proc/partitions

3 Reply by Jason761 (edited by Jason761 2011-03-16 05:25:44)

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

Here are the results im getting

sudo parted -l

Model: Corsair Flash Voyager (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 16.2GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start    End        Size      Type       File system flags
1           32.3kb 16.2GB   16.2GB  primary  fat32          boot, lba

sudo fdisk -l -u

Disk /dev/sda: 16.2 GB , 16173236224 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1966 cylinder, total 31588352 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 =512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
     Device Boot       Start       End              Blocks            Id        System
/dev/sda  *             63           31588325   15794131+    c          W95 FAT32 (LBA)

cat /proc/partitions

major minor #blocks       name
8        0        15794176   sda
8        1        15794131   sda1
7        0        102560       loop0

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

It appears that Linux is only seeing the Corsair Flash Voyager.

Are the hard drives recognized by your BIOS?

You can check the BIOS by pressing a certain key while booting.  For my computer the key is "DELETE".  Some other computers use F11.  Often the key needed is displayed on the screen while the computer boots.

5 Reply by Jason761

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

gedakc wrote:

It appears that Linux is only seeing the Corsair Flash Voyager.

Are the hard drives recognized by your BIOS?

You can check the BIOS by pressing a certain key while booting.  For my computer the key is "DELETE".  Some other computers use F11.  Often the key needed is displayed on the screen while the computer boots.

in the bios under standard cmos features i only see my dvd drive. Under the boot sequence and the Marvell 88SE91xx Adapter, i can see my two hard drives.

6 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

It might be a problem recognizing your Marvell 88SE91xx Adapter.

Perhaps there is a setting in your BIOS that might be enabled or disabled so that the drive is seen by Linux.

Also, have you had any luck with other GNU/Linux live CDs detecting the hard drive (e.g., Ubuntu)?

7 Reply by Jason761

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

gedakc wrote:

It might be a problem recognizing your Marvell 88SE91xx Adapter.

Perhaps there is a setting in your BIOS that might be enabled or disabled so that the drive is seen by Linux.

Also, have you had any luck with other GNU/Linux live CDs detecting the hard drive (e.g., Ubuntu)?

what setting is it called to enable or disable a drive to be seen on linux? What do you mean by trying other GNU/Linux live CDs?

8 Reply by class413

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

Hello Jason.
I searched in the web and found a lot of problems reported for this adapter (hard drives not detected, boot failure, system frozen on boot, etc). Many of them were related to Asus motherboards.

It seems that this controller is a 6 Mbit/s chip that does everything, SATA ports, PATA, & "RAID on motherboard", and claims to be backward compatible to 3 Mbit/s (AHCI mode) and 1.5 Mbit/s (IDE compatible mode).
Usually, the BIOS setup menu contains a setting related to the SATA configuration as legacy IDE compatible, SATA AHCI or SATA RAID.
I guess (but I don't know) that there is another special setting for thiw controller, for the enhanced SATA iii compatibility or the SATA ii compatibility. So, you could try to disable the enhanced 6 Mbit/s function, in case your hard drives don't support it. Perhaps, the "backward compatibility" isn't fully automatic. Please, look at the manual of your motherboard for details (motherboards and BIOS versions aren't all the same). Furthermore, you could visit the user forum of your motherboard, to see if this problem is already reported and solved. Sometimes a BIOS update is needed to solve the problem.


As for the "other GNU/Linux live CDs", you could try to boot the computer from any Linux bootable cd, as Ubuntu or Knoppix. These live cds contain a lot of drivers and detect most of the hardware pieces. This is a way to check the hardware of a computer. You can easily download the ISO file and burn it on a cdr. Just, be sure to use a recent version, because your adapter is a rather new model.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

9 Reply by Jason761

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

I have a MSI P55A-G55 and i have a sata iii and sata ii hard drive. So where is the option to change this?

10 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Problem locating hard drives.

You will need to search through your BIOS settings and/or read up in the manual for your motherboard.  Class413's tip to check in forums for your motherboard is a good tip too.