New build has difficulty ID'ing HD

[chzlchp]

Here's all the shiny new stuff I cobbled a dream-computer together with:

ASUS M3A78 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W
Dual-Core Processor - Retail

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual
Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Hard Drive

EVGA 512-P3-N860-TR GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Pioneer Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM
40X CD-R 32X CD-RW 40X CD-ROM 2MB Cache IDE 20X DVD±R DVD Burner


Antec NeoPower 650 Blue 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready
Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Problem is, the hard drive is not recognized! When booting up, I quickly get to the BIOS j(American Megatrends v02.61), but when I tried to install an OS (many flavors of Linux) they all declared that no hard-drive was available. However, on the BIOS "Main Settings" screen, I clearly show:

Primary IDE Master [PIONEER DVD-RW DV]
SATA1 [WDC WD3200AAKS-00B]

So, obviously the hard drive is recognized during the BIOS setup phase. Note that the ASUS M3A78 motherboard has six SATA connector slots, and obviously, I have connected my HD to slot #1.

So, where do I go to upgrade this box from a $1000 paper-weight to a computer?

[The Wise Monkey]

Are you booting from a live CD or a text based installation? Which Linux OSs have you tried?

Try booting into a Cute Partition Manager CD and formatting your HD into FAT32:

http://www.cutepm.com/

You can always modify this to an ext3 filesystem when you install the OS.

[chzlchp]

Are you booting from a live CD or a text based installation? Which Linux OSs have you tried?

I've attempted to boot from three different commercially produced CD sets that I've got laying around. One of the three is the same Mandrake 10.1 set that runs the computer I'm using right now. Another is a very basic Red Hat [Linux 9] distro that came with a book I bought some time back.

[chzlchp]

I just pulled a Ubuntu 7.0 disk out of a magazine I recently bought, and tried installing it. The splash screens worked their special magic for awhile, then the whole thing just hung up in the midst of some text messages that declared:

Starting deferred execution scheduler atd [OK]
Starting periodic command scheduler crond [OK]
Checking battery state...[OK]
Running local boot scripts (/etc/rc.local) [OK]

Then, it stopped doing anything.

Tried running a Maxtor MaxBLAST3 analysis CD. It recognized my HD, spelled its' designation out correctly, then declared that it wanted a bunch of money from me for a new CD that would do all I wanted.

Once again tried installing my Mandrakelinux 10.1 OS. The splash screens danced around happily for awhile, then pointed out that they couldn't find a CDROM device. Kinda funny, huh? The CDROM device is what is driving the CD that says it can't find the device that it is in (and running from). Wants me to go to a floppy, which of course I don't have. I didn't even install a floppy drive.

So, what do I do?

(Just for grins, I opened up the box and tugged and pushed on the HD connections. BTW, this HD does not have a 40-pin connection, and there is only one such connection on the mobo, which I used for the CD/DVD. This was done, of course, before I tried all of the above things.)

[chzlchp]

I do not, ever, see the HD activity light come at the front of my case--while I'm attempting to do any of the things that I sorta thought I would be able to do (like install OS's, and stuff).

[chzlchp]

Try booting into a Cute Partition Manager CD and formatting your HD into FAT32:

http://www.cutepm.com/

You can always modify this to an ext3 filesystem when you install the OS.

I went to the suggested site, downloaded something that was called "cpm.exe", copied it to a disc, put the disk into the CD drive of my new box, and got...nadda.

The computer wants me to:

"Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and pres a key_"

So, what next?

[zburns]

I assume Wise Monkey will pick up with you in the morning. I just have a few observations based on peripheral things you said. Your 40 pin IDE cable is for a PATA hard drive. Your mobo will probably allow two IDE devices at the most. You have only one 40 pin connector on the Asus Mobo but you can get a 40 pin cable that fits the mobo and has two connectors on it, one for master and one for slave, ie. a second CD or DVD drive for example.

Your HD is a SATA HD. It plugs up with a red cable and plug with either 6 or 7 pins in the connector; this cable does not carry the power for the HD. You should have a second power cable from the PSU, 4 wires, and a 4 pin connector that you have plugged into the SATA HD.

In the BIOS your DVD drive should be recognized as master IDE device and slave indicated by "none" unless you have the cable with three plug /connectors I mention above and a second IDE device installed. Below that your SATA drives will be listed as enabled or none (if I remember correctly) depending on how many you have installed. (My Asus board supports two IDE devices and six SATA -- I assume ours are similar).

I have Vista 32 bit; no experience with Linux. Hope this little bit helps some! Good luck.

[chzlchp]

I assume Wise Monkey will pick up with you in the morning...You have only one 40 pin connector on the Asus Mobo but you can get a 40 pin cable that fits the mobo and has two connectors on it, one for master and one for slave, ie. a second CD or DVD drive for example.

Your HD is a SATA HD. It plugs up with a red cable and plug with either 6 or 7 pins in the connector; this cable does not carry the power for the HD. You should have a second power cable from the PSU, 4 wires, and a 4 pin connector that you have plugged into the SATA HD.

In the BIOS your DVD drive should be recognized as master IDE device and slave indicated by "none"... Below that your SATA drives will be listed as enabled or none...(My Asus board supports two IDE devices and six SATA -- I assume ours are similar).

Good luck.

Check, check...and check.

I've only installed one CD/DVD drive (onto the one master/slave 40-wire cable) so yes, the BIOS indicates a master but no slave (lines one & 2).

The SATA HD does indeed have two cables going to it. The feed cable coming from SATA position #1 on the mobo, and the power cable coming from off the PSU. And yes, the BIOS indicates a live HD in the 1st position, and the other postions (2 thru 6) are listed as empty.

Well, we see what the morning brings, huh?

[zburns]

I assume your boot priority is CD, then Hard Drive, and your BIOS is set that way, and you have "booted" up something, but it did not last. What about your drivers and compatability? When I loaded Vista, current Microsoft Windows web pages assured me that over 10,000 drivers were "digitally signed" by Windows to be compatible with Vista.

You see a lot of "driver talk" on this forum about "loading" the latest drivers. Right now my Vista reports back to me that my sleep mode is being affected by Nvidia drivers presently downloaded for my video card and that I should remove them if they are not in use. Seems to me, lack of compatible drivers is a pretty serious problem from the standpoint of software performing as intended.

Whatever OS you are using should be current with its own updates, and there must also be "current drivers" for your "current software" that are compatible with your new components. You imply you are using older versions of Linux, I think.

If I am "thinking this stuff thru wrong", someone else please say so! Not sure what your next step is. Rob's website pages for this phase you are in, should say something specifically, or "imply" what you should be doing. If you were using XP or Vista, you would be "doing something with drivers" about now. If I were doing a new build right now and at the stage you were in, I would be spending a lot of time, literally hours, being very sure of what my next several steps should be, particularly when it came to knowing I had exactly the correct drivers that component manufacturers said were compatible with my OS; then do it backards, OS saying "yes" these drivers are compatible with the specific components. Your components are impressive!

Someone else, please agree or disagree!

[The Wise Monkey]

I went to the suggested site, downloaded something that was called "cpm.exe", copied it to a disc, put the disk into the CD drive of my new box, and got...nadda.

The computer wants me to:

"Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and pres a key_"

So, what next?

You are meant to run that cpm.exe which will allow you to create a bootable CD/DVD, which you then boot from to format your HD.

If the HD light isn't coming on, then it means either that the HD is defective or the connection for the LED is the wrong way around. Double check all your connections first, then try re-formatting your HD.

[chzlchp]

I'm gonna let all this sit and fester until tonight--right now I'm gonna go over to my woodshop and spend Saturday working on a toy box for my new granddaughter.

What I will do tonight is drag out one of my older computers--it's a 1932 Model A Dell that I once gave my son (and one day I found it back on my doorstep). I bought a new (conventionally powered/configured) 40GB HD, stuck it in, and the whole box was very happy to welcome my Mandrakelinux 10.1 OS. No problems. No mysteries. So, this puppy works on a very predictable, dependable basis.

I'm gonna attempt to put that Ubuntu 7.0 (which is very recent) into it, and see what happens. If the installation works, then obviously the issues are somehow hardware related with this blazing new (wish it worked as simply and as well) as my traditional stuff.

Wish I could put that same older, 40GB HD into my new box; I could at least maybe get a handle on the problems. But I can't--or can I? Can I hook the HD and the DVD up to the same 40-pin cable? They are both IDE critters.

I'll also run the <<cpm.exe>> package I downloaded, and create a new disk to take over to the new box.

But again, this is all for tonight. Right now I'm heading over to a place where I know I am in control. Meantime, thanks for all the time and support.

[The Wise Monkey]

You can connect both the DVD and HD to the same cable, just make sure that the jumpers are set so that one is set to be the master and one is set to be the slave.

Good luck!

[chzlchp]

Done got myself a working computer! And it was simple--all I hadda do was find a bleeding-edge OS that understood all these way out toys. The winner is: "xubuntu-8.10-alternate-amd64.iso"

I had attempted to install (as I'd said, many OS's-including ubuntu 8.10) and was getting nowhere-even pointed out that I saw no HD activity (as evidenced by the LED) prompting concerns about hardware issues, even though the BIOS clearly found the HD.

What I had done was attempted to install ubuntu-8.10-amd64, and when that hung up I just let the computer sit and fester for awhile. It rewarded me by printing out logs of the failed install effort. Here are samplings:

sr 6:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. sense: L-EC uncorrectable error
end_request: I/O error, dev sr0 sector 1335828
Buffer I/O error on device sr0
sr 6:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE, SUGGEST_OK

I Googled 'sr0' and came across a forum exchange where the guy was struggling with the exact same issues as I, was attempting to use the same OS, and finally stumbled upon success with the afformentioned "xubuntu-alternate". You'd better believe my HD LED started lighting up once that puppy started installing itself!

I think that I got the most help from a software forum. No attempt here to criticize, I just believe that the answer lay more closely with software issues, and that was the path that we began working on, rather than looking for hardware solutions, as was the natural inclination here. But, all-in-all, I've gained a lot of knowledge (and a little bit more confidence) by hanging in with this and seeing it thru.

Thanks to all for your interest and participation. ;)

Lowell [T]

[The Wise Monkey]

Cool, glad you got it working. :)