Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

AdamskiAirsoft · 2007-03-26 02:59:25

I tried installing Arch Linux for the second time. I've never had problems with Linux before, or atleast major problems. I got the partition working, and it worked, or it didn't, and reinstalled Windows.

I followed http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Off … tall_Guide both times, Everything went fine, no odd messages, no obstructing errors.

I did an MD5 check both times, and they were good.

My guess is it's the boot loader. This time, I did the auto-prepare for the hard drive, and choose GRUB as my boot loader, and had it go to the default place, which apparently wasn't correct.

My situation as of now? I am stuck at the first boot screen, where it says to press F2 for Boot, and F10 for BIOS, but I can't get there. If I unplug my IDE Harddrive, I can, which is how I've been able to boot to a CD, and use a LiveCD like this, Xubuntu, or get back to the Arch screen.

Now, if I fdisk /dev/hda, it says it doesn't exist. When I fdisk /dev/hdc it does, but it says there are no partitions. When I remember after doing auto-prepare, checking it out under manual, that all three partitions were there. I tried getting help in the IRC Chat, but didn't get it fixed, and basically found out that /dev/hdc is read-only.

Stalwart · 2007-03-26 08:29:31

With recent kernels hard drives were renamed to sd*

stb · 2007-03-26 08:32:42

I hardly understand your problem. So you're telling the system doesn't even try to boot after the installation was done? You shoud at least see a message like "No OS found!" or an error message from grub itself.

When I did install arch two weeks ago I had a problem with the piix driver. While the installation procedure was running my harddisk was recognized as /dev/hda. When I booted for the first time though, the (newer) kernel found the device /dev/sda. The result was the kernel could not find and therefore not mount the root fs.

AdamskiAirsoft · 2007-03-26 10:42:00

When FDisking, all that seems to work is:

fdisk -l /dev/hdc

And I get this message:

"Note: sector size is 2048 (not 512)

Disk /dev/hdc: 7740 MB, 7740522496 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 235 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 2048 = 32901120 bytes

Disk /dev/hdc doesn't contain a valid partition table"

When I do:

cfdisk /dev/hdc

(Which is the only working one again) I get a message saying it's read only, I do not have permission to write to it. Inside, it has no partitions, only one of type Pri/Log and Free Space. What concerns me, is that it says the disk has 7,740 MB. This is an 80 GB drive, so it's missing another digit there.

Last edited by AdamskiAirsoft (2007-03-26 10:49:09)

noriko · 2007-03-26 10:59:49

what iso are you using? (if not, you might try using the new isos(beta)) ftp://ftp.hosteurope.de/mirror/ftp.arch … r/0.8/i686

what do you get when you do `ls /dev/hd*` and `ls /dev/sd*` ?... hdc sounds like a cdrom/dvd; that where it often is (hdc) and it states that's it's a read-only fs..

AdamskiAirsoft · 2007-03-26 12:01:43

I was using 0.7.2.

"ls /dev/hd*"
/dev/hdc /dev/hdd

"ls /dev/sd*"
ls: /dev/sd*: No such file or directory

fk · 2007-03-26 12:17:28

AdamskiAirsoft wrote:

I was using 0.7.2.
"ls /dev/hd*"
/dev/hdc /dev/hdd
"ls /dev/sd*"
ls: /dev/sd*: No such file or directory

It's recommended to use the 0.8 beta2 iso, noriko say it before..

noriko · 2007-03-26 12:42:53

yeh, use the new beta isos ...
if u have problems identifying the device as say 'hda' .. try the commands above ... also beware, the beta isos use the pata subsystem (i think) so the devices will be listed as sd* ... just do `ls /dev/sd*` adn it shoudl list only one device which is the harddrive ...

---
if u prefer to use the 7.2 iso then please note, based on the output of the command the hardrive is at /dev/hdd

AdamskiAirsoft · 2007-03-26 12:43:17

fk wrote:

AdamskiAirsoft wrote:
I was using 0.7.2.
"ls /dev/hd*"
/dev/hdc /dev/hdd
"ls /dev/sd*"
ls: /dev/sd*: No such file or directory
It's recommended to use the 0.8 beta2 iso, noriko say it before..

Any idea's how to fix my hard drive so I can do that then?

I just ran

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/HD count=1 bs=512

and got

1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512 B) copied, 5e-05 seconds, 10 MB/s

(I'm posting updates about what others have recommended doing, hopefully giving everyone ideas about what's wrong)

AdamskiAirsoft · 2007-03-26 12:51:30

noriko wrote:

yeh, use the new beta isos ...
if u have problems identifying the device as say 'hda' .. try the commands above ... also beware, the beta isos use the pata subsystem (i think) so the devices will be listed as sd* ... just do `ls /dev/sd*` adn it shoudl list only one device which is the harddrive ...
---
if u prefer to use the 7.2 iso then please note, based on the output of the command the hardrive is at /dev/hdd

I get the same messages with /dev/hdd and /dev/hdc, with the cfdisk and fdisk commands. Only difference is that /dev/hdd has 553 MB.

Shnerdly · 2007-03-29 01:15:56

This sounds like it might be a hardware issue.

Just out of curiosity,

Do you have your HD installed physically to the primary IDE controller on the MB by itself?

Do you have the CDROM installed to the secondary IDE controller by itself?

If both answers are yes then check the jumper on the HD and make sure it is set to CS for Cable Select and that you are using a ribbon that has a blue end on it and the blue end is connected to the MB and the HD is connected to the other end of the ribbon with the extra connector on the ribbon empty and in the middle of the ribbon.

I think the CD will allow you to install to HDC but your computer probably won't boot it.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-03-26 02:59:25

Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#2 2007-03-26 08:29:31

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#3 2007-03-26 08:32:42

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#4 2007-03-26 10:42:00

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#5 2007-03-26 10:59:49

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#6 2007-03-26 12:01:43

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#7 2007-03-26 12:17:28

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#8 2007-03-26 12:42:53

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#9 2007-03-26 12:43:17

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#10 2007-03-26 12:51:30

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

#11 2007-03-29 01:15:56

Re: Installation broke my hard-drive... AGAIN!! >:(

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