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Topic: HDD not recognised (trying to partition), unable to format HDD - not recognised

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4ebees

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: May 2005

Posted: May 24 2005,15:54

Hi all,

V. new to DSL (have just downloaded ISO). I'm trying to install DSL to an old Compaq Deskpro 166MMX (142MB RAM, 2G HDD).

I'm trying to install on a HDD that had Smoothwall installed - have just reinstalled on another pc). I've tried cfdisk, but the HDD is not recognised/located.

I've tried using a Winders98 boot disk, but get the same problem, I've also tried to use the Emergency Boot Rescue Disk CD I have (not failed before) and again, it says it can't find C: (or D: or X: for that matter)

If I just boot up the pc, Smoothwall starts - so the HDD is there and can be seen in the BIOS.

I'm a bit stumped by this - I've not experienced this before. Has anyone any suggestions as to where to start?

Any suggestions, recommendations, or referrals to other sites for assistance, would be most appreciated.

cbagger01

Group: Members
Posts: 4264
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: May 24 2005,16:37

Are you looking at the correct hard drive address?

For IDE drives, the syntax is:

/dev/hda
/dev/hdb
/dev/hdc
/dev/hdd

For SCSI drives, the syntax is:

/dev/sda
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdc
/dev/sdd

Try typing "mount" and press ENTER key from a smoothwall terminal.

Maybe you can figure out the location of the hard drive from the list of mounts.

I dunno. I have never used smoothwall.

clivesay

Group: Guests
Posts: 935
Joined: Dec. 2003

Posted: May 24 2005,16:51

Are you running cfdisk from root? Also, you may want to check in /mnt to see how your HD is recognized (hda hdb hdc).

Then you can just:

cfdisk /dev/hda

Or whatever your drive ID is.

Good luck

Chris

Guest
Unregistered

Posted: May 24 2005,16:56

You are trying to install DSL on top of Smoothwall, right? And you want to remove Smoothwall, right?

If so, then I wonder why that Windows Emergency Disk did not work. Normally you should be able to boot with it, then use fdisk. Initially it will tell you that it did not locate a drive because the drive is formatted as ext2, which Windows cannot recognize. But this shouldn't matter because you should still be able to do low-level format on that disk with fdisk. Do not "cd" to the hard disk; run fdisk from the floppy.

Also, did you try booting off the DSL LiveCD? Once booting is finished, open an XTerminal and type "sudo su". Then type "cat /etc/fstab | less", and you should see a listing of mountable devices that was detected on your computer. One of them should look like "/dev/hda#" and have the item "ext2" after it. If you see this, your hard disk was recognized by DSL. Press "q" to quit the program "less", then type "mount /dev/hda#" (use the appropriate number for #). Then type "cd /mnt/hda#" and "ls -al" and you should see the contents of that drive.

Try booting off the LiveCD first and tell us what you saw.

4ebees

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: May 2005

Posted: May 25 2005,00:19

Hi all,

Thanks for the info. I was able to make huge progress as a result (though with one SMALL problem

)

I realised that it was hdc (1-4). So, using the live disk, I cfdisk'd hdc to make one large partition, then made two partitions (one of 500MB and the other of the remaining). I then used the GUI install option. All seemed to go well, until installing the boot loader. It 'seemed' okay, but then stalled at re-boot (as requested) and now I get the dreaded "L1 01 01" litany.

I'm not familiar with hacking around boot loaders, so again any assistance would be most appreciated.

(Just so people know, the idea at this stage is that I've proposed an install at a community centre in a socio-economically deprived area. I want to get the hang of a Linux distro that will suit older pcs, so we can use it as an option for those persons who think their machine has come to the end of it's useful life - which is why I'm trying out DSL!)

10 replies since May 24 2005,15:54

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