ARRRGGG! What's up with my 1735's hard drive?

So, I got a second drive for my Dell 1735. Did a backup of a cleaned up Vista and restored it to the new drive. Loaded Ubuntu in a separate partition and everything's good with just the one non-dell drive.

Now I put the Dell drive in HDD2 location. Now my bios is showing no hard drives. After reboots the drives might be there they might not. Remove both drives and put the dell drive back in HDD1. I booted with Acronis 11 and was able to see the drive and run their clean utility on it.

Bios sees the drive again. Boot with the Ubuntu Live cd and that fails then the drive isn't shown in the bios again. Power off and reboot and the drive shows up again. Boot with Acronis and the drive isn't there again.

Here's the kicker though...I can load Vista. Booting with the Vista cd the drive is there. After loading Vista I tried booting the Ubuntu Live cd and it fails and the drive disappears again. Power off/on and Vista boots fine.

Whats going on? Why is the drive not being seen by the bios. Does Dell do anything to the MBR or something? Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
davidk

 

I swapped the drives again. Non-dell in hdd1 and dell-one in hdd2. The thing boots Ubuntu but Gparted isn't showing the second drive. What the heck!

Thanks,
davidk

 

Update: When I boot into Vista (from the grub menu on the first drive) I can see the drive. I've initialized the drive and formatted it. Looks fine in windows, just cant do anything with it in Ubuntu. I still get the bios not finding the drives.

This just isn't making any sense.

 

Have you set which is the master and which is the slave drive? Have you tried loading only one drive at a time and tried to boot with that successfully? You might be experiencing some incompatibility issues if you have.

 

I don't think you have to set a master/slave for sata?
I did try one drive at a time. Both loaded Vista ok but only one would let the Ubuntu Live cd boot. Right now I've got the non-dell with Vista as the first partition, Ubuntu as the second. I boot with grub into Ubuntu and I don't see the drive. Reboot into Vista and I do see the drive. I was able to initialize it and format it in Vista but go back to Ubuntu and it's not there. The system log is giving messages like:

Code:

Aug 30 23:54:42 [   35.737651] ata3: SError: { HostInt 10B8B LinkSeq DevExch }
Aug 30 23:54:42 [   35.737669] ata3: hard resetting link
Aug 30 23:54:42 [   41.636564] ata3: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
Aug 30 23:54:42 [   45.765934] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 30 23:54:42 [   45.766000] ata3: hard resetting link
Aug 30 23:54:43 [   50.675268] ata3: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
Aug 30 23:54:47 [   51.493571] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 30 23:54:47 [   51.493585] ata3: hard resetting link
Aug 30 23:54:53 [   55.146383] ata3: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
Aug 30 23:55:22 [   68.276300] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 30 23:55:22 [   68.276314] ata3: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Aug 30 23:55:22 [   68.276317] ata3: hard resetting link
Aug 30 23:55:27 [   71.623059] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 30 23:55:27 [   71.623072] ata3: reset failed, giving up
Aug 30 23:55:27 [   71.623078] ata3: EH complete
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  512.633953] ata3: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  512.664259] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  512.706365] ata3: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  512.737561] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  512.779613] ata3: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  513.018384] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  513.018393] ata3: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  513.055912] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [  513.055918] ata3: reset failed, giving up
Aug 31 00:50:51 [    6.296061] ata3: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [   10.824632] ata3: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [   11.133717] ata3: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [   11.197164] ata3.00: ATA-8: TOSHIBA MK2552GSX, LV011D, max UDMA/100
Aug 31 00:50:51 [   11.197168] ata3.00: 488397168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
Aug 31 00:50:51 [   11.198149] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/100

 

Oopps. Sorry, you're right about the sata part, thanks for clearing that up. My bad.

I'm sorry, but I'm totally confused with your post/problem. Anybody else out there can lend a hand? How about trying to wipe out all your drives and starting over with new partitions and install from scratch, not from a backup image, and try to download another copy of Ubuntu, you might have a bad download or installer. If that don't solve the problem, again, you might be dealing with some incompatibility issues or worst, a bad drive. You also might want to try posting at http://www.ubuntu.com/support/communitysupport first, Ubuntu's support page. There a lot of knowledgeable people there that could surely help regarding your issues. Sorry, if can't be more of a help.

 

I ran Dell diags and got error 0140, message 2000-0140. The bios isn't seening the drive so reinstall isn't going to work on that. If I put my second drive in it's recognized 100% of the time and my Ubuntu Live diks works.

I think the bios not recognizing the drive is the key here. I'm going with the drive being bad. Dell is shipping me a new drive so we'll see what happens in several days.

Thanks,
davidk

 

Got the new drive from Dell. It has an image of Vista on it just like a new drive and seems to boot fine. HOWEVER, I still cant boot with the Ubuntu Live cd.
When it's in as the 2nd drive and I boot Ubuntu from the first drive the messages say the port is slow to respond. The drive didn't show up when I first booted but was after coming out of suspend. At least the drive is showing up in the bios (for the time being).

Could Dell be doing something to the drives that limit their transfer rate or ability to have non-Vista OS loaded on them?

 

If I understand your problem correctly you are trying to dual boot the 1735 with Ububtu and Vista.

If this is the case, then you need to format both drives. The if you want to have a drive per operating system , then you need to install Ububtu plus boot manager on drive 1 (primary boot drive) and vista on drive 2. Configure the boot manager and away you go.

Ubuntu will not be able to see the vista drive and vista will see the ubuntu drive as a drive containing an unknown os.

Alternatively you can partiton the primary drive and install ububtu onto partition 1, then vista onto partition 2. Foramt the second drive to a mutual file system and again boot each operating system using the boot manager. The operating systems will both then be able to see the second drive.

Here is a useful Ubuntu link for the occasion

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot?highlight=(boot)|(dual)|(vista)

Not for the faint hearted but, have fun

 

Not exactly. I'm dumping Vista for Ubuntu. I've got dual boot on the non-dell drive right now but I'm trying to load just Ubuntu on the Dell drive. The Live cd should be able to boot regardless of the OS on the hard drive but it cant when the Dell drive is in the system in either hdd1 or 2.

I copied the MBR from the non-dell to the dell drive and I still can't boot the live cd. Right now I'm using dd to copy one drive to the other. I'm not holding out hope that it will work. I havent tried the Dell Ubuntu image yet but even OpenSuse live cd wont boot. Same linux underneath so I guess it's to be expected.

What could be different about the Dell Toshiba mk2552gsx drive that makes linux puke?
Anyone want to trade for a Dell 250gig drive?
I've just about run out of ideas.

Thanks,
davidk

 

Ah ok. Your original post was somewhat confusing

First of all, the Ubuntu Live CD doesn't have all the necessary drivers to recognise all types and configurations of HDD. The Dell drive is clearly one it doesn't recognise.

What is the Dell drive set to in the bios? AHCI or ATA/IDE?

If it is set as an AHCI drive, then you would need to load the correct drivers at boot time otherwise Ubuntu and even XP (though not Vista) will die at boot time complaining about the drive not being recognised.

Can't really help without knowing your hardware bios configuration unfortunately.

 

Last night dd did it's job. Grub loads and Vista works, but when it tries to load Linux it fails.

The bios is set for AHCI with fastcache enabled and works fine when I have the Hitachi drive I purchased separately installed. With the Hitachi installed the Live cd boots fine. Anytime the Dell supplied Toshiba is in the system the Live cd fails. Even when I boot from the Hitachi drive and check the logs there are complaints about the Toshiba drive. "slow to respond" speed set to udma/100 (I think).

I'm about ready to chuck the drive if I cant figure it out. It's very frustrating.
Got ta go to a meeting....
Thanks,
davidk

 

Man, I hate meetings.

Anyway, the machine is the standard Dell 1735. I don't know who's controller is in it. The bios is setup for AHCI and fastcache. The drive that works is a Hitachi HTS542525K9SA00. The one that doesn't is a Toshiba MK2552GSX.

The bios has AHCI and ata options and I've tried them both with no luck on the Toshiba drive. The fact that everything works with the Hitachi but not the Toshiba is why I think it's something with the drive. Something Dell did or something Toshiba did that's stopping Linux from booting.

Any other ideas are appreciated.
Thanks,
davidk

p.s. Do you think if I called Dell they'd tell me anything? Based on my experience with getting the drive replaced (because it wasn't being detected by the bios) the tech seemed to be reading off a flowchart. And besides that, running Linux on a Studio is not a supported option.

 

Dell run Ubuntu on a number of their other laptops with the same drive (Toshiba). Have you checked the dell site for drivers?

....Have you tried booting Ubuntu with the noprobe flag set?

 

I haven't, no. I'll do that. What troubles me, like I've said, is that everything works wonderfully when I have the Hitachi drive in the system.

I did try the Dell Ubuntu image suggested earlier with no luck. Just can't get the thing to boot with the live cd if the Toshiba drive is in the system. Even the working image from the Hitachi copied to the Toshiba fails to boot, but the Vista that was copied with it does boot.

I'll give Dell a call on Monday. Maybe I'll start with the Dell rep we deal with at work.

I'll update everybody when I find out something.
Thanks,
davidk

 

Just as I expected...Dell washed their hands of the problem. "Vista's running? Right?...Then it's not our problem."

So, I'm stuck with a 250gig drive that won't even work as a second drive in my Linux system. The lady that I talked to, I don't think was the best and brightest at Dell. Again, it seemed she was reading from a flowchart.

Anyone know if theres a way to update the firmware of the drive? That's the only thing left that I can think of.

I just re-read your post and saw the "noprobe" flag. I'll look that up. I didn't see any Dell drivers either but I continue to look.

The other options is still offered...a trade for a non-Dell hdd

Anyway, I'm continuing to look for ideas to try and will let you know if I find a solution.

Thanks,
davidk

 

One other thing that I did find was that the newer versions of Ubuntu don't actually seem to load the AHCI drivers as default and this seems to cause problems with Toshiba laptops (presumably they have toshiba drives in them).

Looks like you'd need to force the AHCI driver to load though I don't actually know the steps.

 

I'd found one post about a conflict with the usb drivers so they forced the ata drivers to load first. I bookmarked it at work (I hope) so I'll look into it tomorrow.

I think before '06 ahci wasn't supported. I'll see if I can download a version before Haryd, 2.6.24-19. It'll be easier than finding firmware for the drive.

Thanks for your help with this.
davidk

 

Well, the older versions of Ubuntu didn't work any different. None of the boot switches did anything either.

I'm giving up on the Toshiba drive. I downloaded the Ultimate boot cd and reformated, cleaned, wiped the mbr and anything else I could think of with no success.

One last thing before I sell the drive...should I be able to change the bios from ahci to ata and have the drive be recognized by the bios? I'm going to call Dell again about that. I would expect that you should be able to change the setting.

I called Toshiba and asked them if there was something different with the drive. They said I needed to call Linux support to see if there were drivers for the drive. I tried to tell her that drivers would be more likely for the controller not the drive but she just repeated her answer. She also couldn't or wouldn't tell me if the drive was built to not support Linux.

So, anyone change their setting from ahci to ata and still have the bios see the drive?

Thanks,
davidk

 

Am I missing something here? Dell is saying that you can put an ATA drive in the system with some sort of adapter you purchase separately. And that the ATA setting is only there for backward compatibility. Why? You can't put an ata drive in the system. My understanding of the setting was that it provided backward compatibility to the OS to work with the sata drive.

An ata drive has a different connector. You'd have to use some sort of adapter to go to sata then the dell adapter. The drive would no longer fit in the system!

Am I wrong here? Why would there be an ATA setting if it couldn't be used? They customized the bios for the machine and if it wasn't a supported option why would the leave it in there?

AAARRRRRGGGGG!
Thanks,
davidk

Code:

09/10/2008 06:55:11AM 	Session Started with Agent (Satya_123181)
09/10/2008 06:55:16AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "Thank you for contacting Dell Technical Support .My name is Bikram and rep id is 123181, how may I help you today?"
09/10/2008 06:56:42AM 	david kraemer: "Hi, I would like to reload Vista on my Studio 1735 but am having trouble with the bios not finding the drive. I would like to change the bios setting from AHCI to ATA but when I do the drive is not recognized. Should I be able to change that setting an"
&nbsp	d have the drive recognized?
09/10/2008 06:57:19AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "Not to worry I will do my best to resolve the issue"
09/10/2008 06:57:25AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "Please give me 2 to 3 minutes to pull up the system information."
09/10/2008 06:58:02AM 	david kraemer: "The F5 diagnostics show an error 2000-0140 when the bios is set to ATA and the drive is not recognized"
09/10/2008 06:58:41AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "Thanks for waiting David"
09/10/2008 06:58:42AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "My records show that the system you are using is Studio 1735 with Windows Vista Home Premium Operating System installed on it. Is this the product you need assistance with ?"
09/10/2008 06:58:59AM 	david kraemer: "Yes."
09/10/2008 06:59:04AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "May I know what Operating System is installed currently on the system ?"
09/10/2008 06:59:59AM 	david kraemer: "Vista is installed, and the bios is set to AHCI. I'd like to reinstall vista but have the bios set to ATA. When the bios is changed the drive is not recognized by the system."
09/10/2008 07:01:26AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "If I understand you correctly the BIOS does not recognize the drive when it is set to ATA, is that right ?"
09/10/2008 07:01:39AM 	david kraemer: "Correct."
09/10/2008 07:02:08AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "I see that the drive was replaced recently , so may I know why is it set to AHCI ?"
09/10/2008 07:04:24AM 	david kraemer: "Correct the drive was replaced. I had tried reinstalling Vista before and got the same error. But with the first drive the error started happening when the bios was set to AHCI also. Why it's set to AHCI? That is the default setting in the bios. Does"
&nbsp	the machine support the ATA setting?
09/10/2008 07:05:56AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "David, I understand your point but the drive is a SATA drive and it will not be recognized in ATA mode also the factory default setting is AHCI"
09/10/2008 07:06:42AM 	david kraemer: "So, you telling me that the ATA setting is not supported with the hard drive?"
09/10/2008 07:07:00AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "That is correct and the only reason being it is a SATA Drive"
09/10/2008 07:07:37AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "The Studio™ 1735 system uses Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives"
09/10/2008 07:07:43AM 	david kraemer: "The only type of drive you can put in the system is sata. Why would there be a setting for ATA mode if it's not supported by ata drives?"
09/10/2008 07:08:18AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "David I am sorry I would not know these things and SATA is the latest technology and much faster than ATA"
09/10/2008 07:08:41AM 	david kraemer: "Can you connect me with someone who can explain this?"
09/10/2008 07:09:01AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "David it is pretty simple."
09/10/2008 07:09:16AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "The current hard drive is not detected because it is SATA"
09/10/2008 07:09:31AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "If you insert a ATA hard drive and change the option it will work"
09/10/2008 07:10:04AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "Insert an ATA hard drive and then change the option in the BIOS , it will work"
09/10/2008 07:11:29AM 	david kraemer: "An ata drive has a different connector on it and will not work with the existing. Looking at the available options for the machine there are no ata drives available. So why would there be an ATA option is the bios?"
09/10/2008 07:12:37AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "David for these conditions there is a converter available in the market and moreover that is just an option as majority of people uses SATA."
09/10/2008 07:13:05AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "If you see an option in BIOS it has to work, and the connector helps the drive to connect"
09/10/2008 07:13:40AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "You can visit any computer store and get the converter."
09/10/2008 07:14:17AM 	david kraemer: "If the connector plugs onto the ata drive then the dell ata connector plugs on to that the drive would not physically fit in the system."
09/10/2008 07:15:53AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "David, let me elaborate"
09/10/2008 07:16:14AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "Now days all the motherboard is shipped with SATA connectors,"
09/10/2008 07:16:30AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "It has been given as an option and BIOS is actually backward compatible"
09/10/2008 07:17:00AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "It is designed to support ATA as well as SATA."
09/10/2008 07:18:11AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "You can say it is an added benefit or an option that we made the BIOS backward compatible."
09/10/2008 07:18:55AM 	david kraemer: "It may be backwards compatible but an ata drive will not fit in the system. So how is that an added benefit?"
09/10/2008 07:19:33AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "David you can connect an external drive and you need to understand that systems are constantly upgraded to new technology."
09/10/2008 07:20:05AM 	Agent (Satya_123181): "I do not understand that if the system was shipped with a SATA hard drive which works fine with the system , then why would you need to have a ATA drive which is much slower ?"

 

ke?

The default windows vista SATA drivers are not compatible with ATA mode drives on a sata interface. It's that simply. Nothing what so ever to do with anything else. Purely drivers being missing.

Incidentally this is definitely the Ubuntu problem also. I managed to re-create the missing drive syndrome on an old desktop, when the drive is an AHCI drive and the Ubuntu install hasn't loaded the AHCI drivers at boot time.

 

Are there ata drives with the sata connector? Dell stated on the phone that other customers were putting ata drives in their 1735. Yet they don't supply an adapter for an ata drive.

My assumption is that the ahci or ata in the bios are different modes the hdd can be accessed by. In other words, the controler would provide the advanced ahci stuff or emulate ata access to the same sata drive. Is this not correct?

Vista should install with whatever driver is appropriate ahci or ata. But that's irrelevant if the bios doesn't recognize the drive (going back to my assumption that the bios is setting the mode the OS sees the drive as, not how the controller accesses the drive it's self).

As for the Ubuntu install, why would it load the ahci drivers for the Hitachi drive and not the Toshiba drive? Not changing anything in the bios (it's set to ahci for both Hitachi and Toshiba) why would Linux fail to boot?

That's the root of my problem and my failure to understand why it's not working. The same cd is used to boot. With only one drive in the system at a time it always fails with the Toshiba. It even fails to work correctly with the Toshiba as the second drive and the Hitachi booting Linux. The only thing that's changing is the hard drive. It should boot. Unless as I suspect (and in my eyes the tests seem to show) there is some difference with the Toshiba drive that will not support Linux. Or, the two Toshiba drives I received are defective in some way. Vista loaded fine on both so I doubt that's the case.

In any event I'm done with the Toshiba. It's going up for sale.

 

AHCI is a hardware protocol. Drivers only allow the operating system to talk to that hardware. If the drive hardware doesn't support a native ATA mode across the sata interface then the bios has nothing what so ever to do with that.

Setting the bios to ATA for a drive that is Sata and AHCI compatible only is like talking in chinese to a russian. Without the correct translator (the driver software loaded by the operating system at bootup). Your up a certain creek without a paddle.

I think you are assuming the bios setting somehow bypasses the operating system drivers. It doesn't. There also isn't such a thing as a universal AHCI driver. This is why some manufacturers provide AHCI drivers to pair operating systems like vista or linux to their particular hard drives.

 

Ok, so the bios setting changes the way the controller talks with the drive and the Toshiba and Hitachi are both sata and won't work with the ata setting.

In the conversation with Toshiba they were unable or unwilling to tell me if there were drivers for their drive under Linux AND in all my searches nothing was ever mentioned about specific drivers for different brands of hard drives. If what your saying is true then the fact that the Toshiba will not work means that I either need to find some specific and obscure Toshiba driver or abandon the drive and get another Hitachi.

I'm getting the Hitachi. Thanks for hanging in and working with me.
davidk