Zenwalk setup doesn't detect IDE hdds

dreamcatcher · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:28 am **Posts:** 11

Hi,
I wanted to give Zenwalk a try, but the setup couldn't detect any of my IDE disks. I have several other distros installed on my IDE and SATA disks, and I've never encountered this before.

The lspci output from another distro:

Code:

00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge
00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge
00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge
00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. PT890 Host Bridge
00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge
00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge
01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge
0f.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80)
0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86)
11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [KT600/K8T800/K8T890 South]
11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)
12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 78)
00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1)

And, not sure if it will be useful, but here is the fstab file of one of the distros:

Code:

# See the manpage fstab(5) for more information.
#
#   <fs>             <mountpoint>     <type>    <opts>               <dump/pass>
LABEL=PARDUS_ROOT    /                ext3      defaults,user_xattr,noatime 0 0
LABEL=PARDUS_SWAP    none             swap      defaults,sw          0 0
none                 /proc            proc      nosuid,noexec        0 0
none                 /dev/shm         tmpfs     nodev,nosuid,noexec  0 0
/dev/hda6            /mnt/hda6        ext3      noatime              0 0
/dev/hda7            /mnt/hda7        ext3      noatime              0 0
/dev/sda8            /mnt/sda8        ext3      noatime              0 0
/dev/sda1            /mnt/sda1        ntfs-3g   dmask=007,fmask=117,locale=tr_TR.UTF-8,gid=6 0 0
/dev/sda5            /mnt/sda5        ntfs-3g   dmask=007,fmask=117,locale=tr_TR.UTF-8,gid=6 0 0
/dev/sda6            /mnt/sda6        ntfs-3g   dmask=007,fmask=117,locale=tr_TR.UTF-8,gid=6 0 0
/dev/sda7            /mnt/sda7        ntfs-3g   dmask=007,fmask=117,locale=tr_TR.UTF-8,gid=6 0 0
/dev/hdb1            /mnt/hdb1        ext3      noatime              0 0
none                 /proc/bus/usb    usbfs     devmode=666 0 0

gapan · **Posted:** Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:09 pm

Are there any error messages you're getting?

Remember that in Zenwalk all HDs, even IDE ones, are named /dev/sdX

dreamcatcher · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:28 am **Posts:** 11

Oh. I didn't know that they are all named sdX. Sorry, I'm very new at Zenwalk. Thanks for the quick reply.

gapan · **Posted:** Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:24 pm

Actually this is not Zenwalk specific, but applies to linux kernels>=2.6.20, so any distro that uses a new kernel should behave that way.

dreamcatcher · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:28 am **Posts:** 11

Well, I'm still using 2.6.18.x on my systems so, I couldn't know.

Thanks for the help

dreamcatcher · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:28 am **Posts:** 11

Now I have another problem.

I didn't install Lilo, just wanted to add it to an existing GRUB. I added it according to this page: http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php/Fresh_grub_install
But whne I try to boot, it says that it "exceeds the cylinder size allowed by BIOS". What's wrong? I really don't think the disk geometry is causing this, since I have other bootable partitions on other disks which are nowhere close to the beginning of the disk.

gapan · **Posted:** Sun Aug 05, 2007 12:06 am

I don't think I can help you much with that, but can you give us your menu.lst file? Maybe you got the partition numbers wrong...

mhsc · **Joined:** Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:38 pm **Posts:** 237

dreamcatcher wrote:

Now I have another problem.

I didn't install Lilo, just wanted to add it to an existing GRUB. I added it according to this page: http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php/Fresh_grub_install
But whne I try to boot, it says that it "exceeds the cylinder size allowed by BIOS". What's wrong? I really don't think the disk geometry is causing this, since I have other bootable partitions on other disks which are nowhere close to the beginning of the disk.

Err I had the same problem once, caused by a mysterious 64 bit install of Fedora ... When I asked about the problem, no one would give me an answer because according to all the people in the fedora channel and forums the problem no longer existed

However, of course, it did ... Which is actually why I switched from Fedora to Zenwalk (although, I did end up with a working Fedora install before switching, in fairness to the distro)

I tried various fixes I found on the internet people had suggested for that error message. Unfortunately ... I didn't get anywhere. I ended up formatting ...

Anyway, don't listen to me, I'm just ranting

Hope you fix it , without going to the extreme I had to

Edit: before the error message appears, can you access the grub prompt (similar to bash ?)

These days when I have a "grub issue" (when I break something in a grub configuration file or whatever

) I usually just boot from the command line. In fact at one period I forgot what partition grub was installed on and (having so many, and so much laziness) I just booted from command line for about 4 months (it only takes 3 lines

)

dreamcatcher · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:28 am **Posts:** 11

gapan wrote:

I don't think I can help you much with that, but can you give us your menu.lst file? Maybe you got the partition numbers wrong...

Nope, my partition numbers are correct. I even tried to edit the lines during the boot screen, I chosed the correct partition, but it gave that cylinder error.

dreamcatcher · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:28 am **Posts:** 11

mhsc wrote:

Err I had the same problem once, caused by a mysterious 64 bit install of Fedora ... When I asked about the problem, no one would give me an answer because according to all the people in the fedora channel and forums the problem no longer existed

However, of course, it did ... Which is actually why I switched from Fedora to Zenwalk (although, I did end up with a working Fedora install before switching, in fairness to the distro)

I tried various fixes I found on the internet people had suggested for that error message. Unfortunately ... I didn't get anywhere. I ended up formatting ...

Anyway, don't listen to me, I'm just ranting

Hope you fix it , without going to the extreme I had to

Edit: before the error message appears, can you access the grub prompt (similar to bash ?)

These days when I have a "grub issue" (when I break something in a grub configuration file or whatever

) I usually just boot from the command line. In fact at one period I forgot what partition grub was installed on and (having so many, and so much laziness) I just booted from command line for about 4 months (it only takes 3 lines

)

Well, unfortunately booting from the command line didn't help either, thanks for the try though.

dreamcatcher · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:28 am **Posts:** 11

Oh, I forgot to add my menu.lst. Here it is:

Code:

default 0
timeout 10

splashimage (hd0,4)/boot/grub/attean_lake.xpm.gz

title Pardus 2007.2 [2.6.18.8-86]
root (hd0,4)
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/kernel-2.6.18.8-86 root=/dev/hda5 video=vesafb:off mudur=language:tr quiet resume=/dev/hda5
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initramfs-2.6.18.8-86

title Pardus 2007.1 [2.6.18.8-83]
root (hd0,4)
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/kernel-2.6.18.8-83 root=/dev/hda6 video=vesafb:off mudur=language:tr quiet resume=/dev/hda5
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initramfs-2.6.18.8-83

title   Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-4-686
root   (hd0,6)
kernel   (hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-686 root=/dev/hda7 ro 
initrd   (hd0,6)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-4-686

title   Zenwalk GNU/Linux 4.1 2.6.21.3
root    (hd2,4)
kernel  (hd2,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.3 root=/dev/hdb5

title Windows (ntfs) - sda1
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title EXPERIMENT Pardus 2007
root (hd1,0)
kernel (hd1,0)/boot/kernel-2.6.18.5-67 root=/dev/hdb1 video=vesafb:off mudur=language:tr quiet
initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initramfs-2.6.18.5-67 

In this confguration everything except Zenwalk boots up correctly.

michaelbischof · **Joined:** Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:59 pm **Posts:** 3

Hi,

yes, I have the same problem but not with my Zenwalk, which sits in /dev/sdb7, but with all partitions ,,bigger'' than /dev/sda2.
- It must have to do with what size GRUB can recognize. Above a certain size GRUB cannot handle it - but I do not know how to solve that probem!

Regards,

Michael Bischof

sega01 · **Posted:** Sun Aug 05, 2007 6:38 pm

"kernel (hd2,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.3 root=/dev/hdb5" should probably be "kernel (hd2,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.3 root=/dev/sdb5" due to libata.

Good luck,
sega01

michaelbischof · **Joined:** Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:59 pm **Posts:** 3

Hey dreamcatcher,

you are from Turkey? Hayirli isler diyelim...

The solution to your problem (and mine as well!) is here:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/ ... ge.html#18
I love Linux/Unix: it has a kind of inner logic so one can solve problems using the brain.

Regards,

Michael Bischof

dreamcatcher · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:28 am **Posts:** 11

michaelbischof wrote:

Hey dreamcatcher,

you are from Turkey? Hayirli isler diyelim...

The solution to your problem (and mine as well!) is here:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/ ... ge.html#18
I love Linux/Unix: it has a kind of inner logic so one can solve problems using the brain.

Regards,

Michael Bischof

Hi,

Yep, I'm from Turkey. Did my IP tell you that?

The solution seems interesting, I'm most surely gonna read it... when I have time

Thanks for the help

Zenwalk setup doesn't detect IDE hdds

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