Arch Linux

kjozsa

Member

Registered: 2008-06-05

Posts: 147

Lenovo Ideapad S201 HDD installation issues

Hi,

I was trying to install Arch64 on a friend's brand new IdeaPad S201 with a 500Gb Western Digital (according to `hdparm -i`) hdd. When I got to creating an ext4 filesystem for /home covering about 450Gb of the hdd, a massive amount of READ FPDMA QUEUED errors appeared in the logs and the operation failed. I was unable to finish installation due to this error.

What I tried already and did not help:
- zeroing the whole hdd with dd (gave the same IO errors)
- install attempt with IDE controller set to "IDE" and set to "AHCI" in the BIOS (these two options are available)
- installing Ubuntu linux - I thought it'd behave exactly the same but covered the actual error with the not too informative "error 5, input/output error" message
- replacing the brand new machine to an other in the shop (gave the exact same error as the old one)
- installing Windows 7 after all attempts to install Linux - the installer refused to even begin, claiming "cannot be installed to this disk. The disk may fail soon."

My theory is that the IDE controller is not fully supported by the linux kernel and the incorrect access to the device filled the hdd's SMART info..  sounds scary enough for me.

My friend is desperate as he just bought this machine for xmas - and so am I as I could not help him at all.. Anyone can please help with how we could install linux on this hardware? Thanks a lot in advance.

akanski

Member

Registered: 2011-09-30

Posts: 32

Re: Lenovo Ideapad S201 HDD installation issues

It sounds like a defective hard disk. Therefore, I think that your friend had bad luck buying this laptop by sheer coincidence, so he should make a request for warranty. On the other hand, bear in mind that you also had trouble with that hdd when installing that widespread and different kind of OS, hence the possibility of unsupported hardware might be discarded in my opinion.

By the way, somebody else was faced with the same than you here.

Last edited by akanski (2012-01-09 18:28:32)

kjozsa

Member

Registered: 2008-06-05

Posts: 147

Re: Lenovo Ideapad S201 HDD installation issues

Warranty request certainly remains an option, but it will be a bit suspicous for the second time (the machine had already been replaced once when this issue was hit - it produces the exact same error with an other brand new hardware).  I also wonder what happens if the machine gets replaced again and shows the same problem, for the third time.. ?

One more reason why I think the problem is rather with the linux drivers that the notebook came preinstalled with Windows 7 (which my friend wiped on the first day, but was more or less working.

akanski

Member

Registered: 2011-09-30

Posts: 32

Re: Lenovo Ideapad S201 HDD installation issues

There's a lot of defective hardware that's going around. Nevertheless, many manufacturers are not going to recognize such a thing if their laptops have got software "fixes" for this problem on the above-mentioned proprietary operating system.

As far as I'm concerned, I've been faced with a similar technical difficulty; and amazingly enough, these input and output errors on Linux have been solved after executing chkdsk on an NTFS disk partition!

Well, that's all for now. If you still need a hand, don't forget to cite some portions of program output in order to determine how to give a better reply to any issue (e.g. `lspci -knn | grep -A3 SATA` and other pertinent info). Indeed, I'm uninformed about what does SATA controller have your friend's laptop, so I'd rather refrain from drawing any conclusion on the matter.

lnyitrai

Member

Registered: 2012-01-12

Posts: 1

Re: Lenovo Ideapad S201 HDD installation issues

Hi,

I'm "the friend", thanks a lot for your attention. In advance, warranty truly is an option but - for the second time - only through loud and nasty legal debate with unpredictable outcome, so I'm doing my best to avoid it.

Right now I can not give the required details but I'll gather everything I can in the late night.

Thanks a lot!