Cannot open or use hard disk

roostero · n00b Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 7

Hi all

I'm having troubles with the partition stage of my Gentoo install.

All my efforts at partitioning my disk

cfdisk /dev/hdb
fdisk /dev/hdb
dd /dev/zero ...

Lead to the same problem; in a nutshell /dev/hdb cannot be opened or used in any way. /dev/hdb currently holds my old Linux distro.

I can boot with my pocketlinux :wink:

and the fdisk that came with that albeit old can see /dev/hdb fine. Also fdisk off a dos floppy can load this drive and operates as normal.

I have this problem with both Gentoo 1.4R2 and R4 (which I downloaded to see if it was still a problem). In between times I installed Mandrake, and so conclude /dev/hdb is ok to use.

I have also tried turning DMA on and off on the drive but it had no effect.

Any idea's??

Thanks in advance

Deathwing00 · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2003 11:38 am Post subject: Re: Cannot open or use hard disk

roostero · n00b Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 7

The hard disk is a standard IDE 10Gb drive. It has three partitions on it currently one swap and the other two are ReiserFS type.

I have also tried deleting these partitions so that the drive had no partitions on it at all, had no joy. Currently the situations is as above.

Will post as much info as I can about this later on today, such as the boot log.

Deathwing00 · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2003 3:05 pm Post subject: Re: Cannot open or use hard disk

roostero · n00b Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 7

Here are the boot logs then:

Both logs are the same for R2 and R4

=== snip ===

hdb: C/H/S=0/0/0 from BIOS ignored
hdb: SAMSUNG SV1022D, ATA DISK drive
hdc: HITACHI DVD-ROM GD-2500, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: LITE-ON LTR-40125S, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
blk: queue c03b3560, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hdb: host protected area => 1
hdb: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hdb: 1 sectors (0 MB) w/480KiB Cache, CHS=16383/16/63, (U)DMA
hdc: ATAPI 24X DVD-ROM drive, 512kB Cache, DMA
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
hdd: ATAPI 48X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 1984kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Partition check:
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0:hdb : bad access: block=0, count=2
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 0
hdb : bad access: block=0, count=2
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 0
ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.
hdb : bad access: block=0, count=2
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 0
unable to read partition table

=== snip ===

The conclusion then, is that Gentoo is unable to read the partition table. Any idea's are very welcome.

I can give precise error messages from fdisk and such if you require it but I assume that resolving the above will fix all my problems.

Thanks

BradN · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2003 6:55 pm Post subject:

it looks like linux can't read the actual sectors... the disk must not be damaged if you can read it from another boot disk though. Try an older install cd or kernel maybe?

Edweirdo · Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2003 4:37 pm Post subject:

Another option is to try to boot with the Knoppix CD, it may detect the drive.
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