MooseMuffin Posted June 6, 2004 Report Share Posted June 6, 2004 I recently got my hands on this old 10gb hard drive and I figured that this would be a good opportunity to learn linux. My machine runs windows XP on a raid 0 array using a promise pci card. I installed this new drive and have now been having all kinds of trouble. I spent a good 6 hours yesterday trying to get xp to boot while the new drive was plugged in, which I eventually narrowed down to some nvidia software ide driver. Then, the mandrake install would seem to stop every time at the formatting step. By stop, I mean that I could still move the mouse at all, but it didn't seem to have done anything for about 45 minutes. I ended up formatting it using partition magic and picking to use existing partition during the install. I get to the screen where I can choose packages, but then when I hit next, nothing happens for 7-10 minutes and then a screen with a progess bar comes up but it doesn't install anything or move beyond this screen (I left it here and went to bed and 9 hours later, it hadn't moved). I thought that the hard drive may be dead so I went back to partition magic, made it a fat32 drive, and copied some music and movies to it. It was slow, but successful and everything played back alright, so I don't think thats it. My iso images all passed the md5 test, and my plextor burner has never given me a bad burn. Any suggestions? I've never tried linux before and I'm thinking this may be a hopeless project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 6, 2004 Report Share Posted June 6, 2004 You need to solve your hardware issues first. Since linux actually uses hardware settings, it is less forgiving of configuration issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooseMuffin Posted June 6, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2004 Fair enough. Then let me ask you this: I would think, and very possibly incorrectly, that changing hardware settings and drivers in windows will only affect the hardware in windows, and not help get linux installed. So where can I mess around with hardware settings? The bios doesnt offer much except letting me put in the cylindar, sector ect stuff manually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted June 7, 2004 Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 (edited) yes, in the bios. I d/k anything about raid (always stay away from it :D ) but maybe if you can make some sort of changes there? I use to have an usb optical cordless mouse issue that could only be resolved by booting into windows to fix it....*cough*ahem :unsure: after almost a year of fighting it I gave in and went with plugging it into the ps2 port with an adapter as a fix. Yes, that is right>boot windows>config the usb mouse>reboot to either win or lin and it would work.....happened about twice a week. Edited June 7, 2004 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 7, 2004 Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 Let's start with the brand of motherboard and model number, along with the other ide/raid devices hooked up, and usb/serial devices hooked up. B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooseMuffin Posted June 7, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 Motherboard: Asus A7N8X Raid Card: Promise fastrack 100 tx2 2x Maxtor 740X drives attached to it Primary master: Samsung SpinPoint sv1022 (this is connected with a ata33 cable and thus runs in pio mode, this is my suspected culprit at the moment.) Primary slave: none Secondary master: plextor 40/12/40a Secondary slave: toshiba 16x dvd no serial devices and just a logitech mx700 for usb devices. The only thing that stands out is the drive and its transfer mode. Mandrake gives me some dma complaints about that drive during its device detection stage so I'm picking up a ata66/100 cable soon and hoping that will straighten it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 7, 2004 Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 The nforce chipset is a real stinker. With 9.2, you had to install the nvidia drivers prior to doing anything else so that the chipset worked correctly. With 10, some do and some don't! You are describing what could be an ide issue, which tells me chipset driver. So, if you installed the nforce linux drivers, get rid of them. If you did not install them, download them from nvidia and install them. Aren't computers fun? B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooseMuffin Posted June 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 (edited) That sounds like a pretty good suggestion. Unfortunately, I just may be too much of a linux noob to make any use of it =( 2 issues: Nvidia doesnt have a mandrake 10 driver on their website. Should I use the 9.2 one or do I have to do something complicated? Where/how do I install these drivers? I cant install it in linux, since I dont have it running yet, and installing it in windows sure doesnt make sense. BTW, thanks for all your help Ixthusdan Edited June 8, 2004 by MooseMuffin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 8, 2004 Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 Hey, help is what we are about. (I just hope I can help!) Look for a file, called a source file on the nvidia websight. It will look like NVIDIA.xxx.xxx.src.rpm Get that file. Open a console. Type "su" and enter the root password. Type "rpmbuild --rebuild NVIDIA.xxx.xxx.src.rpm" This will build an rpm for your computer and place it in a specific place. After it builds (without errors) type "urpmi /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/i586/*.rpm" This will install the new rpm. Then reboot, and see what happens! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooseMuffin Posted June 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 console? root password? These sound like linux commands/terms, I dont have a working linux... Sorry if I'm being stupid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 8, 2004 Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 The problem might just be the Promise RAID controller. It depends if your particualr one is 100% HW or not, most of the latest series of onboard RAID controllers are not 100% HW but a mix of SW and HW like WinModem's or winPrinters. That is some of the processing etc is run through windows using your CPU ... if this is the case with your card then the RAID part isnt going to work with the windows drivers.... and accessing them is probably best left till later! I think the safest thing is to unplug the RAID'd drives and just have the 10GB drive attached. Once you have a running system messing with the drivers might seem more viable.... One further option to get a taste of linux is to try knoppix or PCLinuxOS. These are LIVE CD's which means they boot up and run without touching the disk. Lots of memory is nice but your rest of the system looks pretty much like Id expect you'd have a decent amount (like 256MB+) In the meantime the big distro's like Mandrake and Suse et al are starting to cope with these new breed of Win controllers like they did with LinModems and LinPrinters! I noticed last night for instance the new MDK 10 for AMD 64 doesnt support these explicitly and although this might sound bad it means they have acknowledged them and are looking into it :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 8, 2004 Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 Oops! :woops: Can you download a live distro, like MEPIS, and see if the computer will boot linux? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooseMuffin Posted June 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 I have knoppix but it wont boot, it freezes at searching for partitions. Im nearly positive the problem is not my raid card because I can boot knoppix with the raid installed, just not with this new drive...but Ive confirmed that the new drive works... Regardless, I should be able to get a new ata cable today that will get the drive out of pio mode and at least fix the dma time outs, maybe that will get me going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 8, 2004 Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 just not with this new drive... hmm sorry but it could be that the card actis differently acording to where things are attached. Where are the two RAID disks and whereis the 10GB disk ? the cable might help too. but the more info you can give the better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooseMuffin Posted June 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 Im not sure what you mean by where but I have 2 disks attached to the raid card. They have my windows xp installation and if I ever get this working, they will also have a small little boot partition. The 10gb drive is attached directly to my motherboard (no raid) as primary master. I can format it to whatever I like by using partition magic within windows, mandrake hangs if I let it try to format it. I have a good amount of info on my system setup already in this thread. If theres any other info that you think may be helpful, just ask. Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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