HD not supported?

Several months ago, I managed to install Mandrake Linux 8.2 onto an old 3GB hard drive that I had aquired. This system has been working perfectly. However, I just purchased a new 40GB hard drive. I downloaded and installed Mandy 9.0 [successfully], but whenever I try starting the sytsem, I get all kinds of segmentation faults. I would love to get this thing working, as it will greatly enhance productivity. Oh — I know that the problem was not with the install discs, because I used them to upgrade the old system.

Here are my system specifications:

Dell Dimension L800r
Intel Pentium III 800MHz
EIDE/ATAPI Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM 40GB HD
256MB RAM
Mandrake Linux 9.0

Thanks in advance!

Well, i'm not sure what the problem is exactly, but if it were me i would reformat with something like partition magic or something and run a diagnostic on it. Then try to install mandrake again. Hope you get it running soon.

-Mr.K

Well, he said he reinstalled, so I imagined he just used DiskDrake - so ostensibly his partitioning should be clean.

But, just to make sure, you can run badblocks on the hard drive. Also, if the problems began a little while after the install, you might check and see if it does so with a fresh install. Perhaps you got some bum packages or something. It's highly unlikely but not to be ruled out entirely.

Oh, and Mandrake (or any Linux for that matter) should not have any trouble running on any Western Digital drive in existence, basically (even back to the pre 1GB models ).

Could it be possible that the DMA settings are too high?

Riv, your suggestion sounds like the closest possible, as I have already tried installing it several times. Could you please elaborate? Also, I ran several utilities on the HD and it works fine.

Thank you all for your time, attention, and help; especially when I do not have much time myself.

I was merely planting seeds.



As you can see from the third line from the bottom my HDD is set up to UDMA5 (100M[Bb]?). Just try hdparm -d 0 /dev/hda to disable it. Note that I just tried it and it didn't seem to make any change probably because the kernel driver does that for me. If DMA is enabled you'll need a special ribbon cable too, don't forget that one.

For more usefull information check out the Ultra-DMA mini-HOWTO. man hdparm will be usefull too.

Thanks once again, riv. Using the install CD, I booted into "Rescue Mode". However, I could not run "hdparm" from there! Tommorrow, though, I am going to see if I can boot into the sytem and run it from there.

Many thanks in advance!

Alright I finnaly got the chance to try to boot that computer — no go. When I get more time, I may try copying the hard drive again. I think that the mistake I made last time was that I didn't know I had to edit the /etc/fstab file.

Once again, many thanks!

I dont know what your setup is but id suggest to get rid of the 3gb hdd and focus only on the newest one. Once your computer is up and running properly hook up the old drive (not as hda of course) and copy the files you need.

Have you updated the BIOS to the latest available? This MAY have some effect, and it sure can't make things worse.

If it fails it will make things worse. Unless you know somebody with a BIOS flasher.

Sorry I havent posted in this thread recently, but I have been meaning to!

Well, I have tried every method that I can possibly think of, but to no avail!

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Well, after several months of trying hard, I finnaly found the answer! Turns out I had to enable the LBA setting in my BIOS!