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Reconfiguring System Query


willisoften
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I'm going to ditch my Zip drive. At present I have things connected in all weird places in order to keep five EIDE/ATAPI devices happy. BUT I suffer from occasional CD Burning problems so some advice please.

 

I have a Gigabyte GA -7DXR motherboard and boy does the manual go out of its way to be unfriendly.

 

some Specs:

AMD 761™ north bridge & VIA 686B south bridge

 

4 IDE busmaster IDE ports for up to 8 ATAPI devices. (Allegedly)

 

IDE 1 & 2 are currently the ones I'm using. with something connected to either 3 or 4. Cant be more specific as the machine is still switched on obviously!

IDE 3 & 4 Compatible with Raid, Ultra ATA100/66/33 EIDE

 

I want to ditch the zip drive leaving 4 channels and 4 devices:

 

A Windows XP hard drive

A Mandrake Linux hard drive

DVD ROM

CDRW

 

The obvious solution to me is to put the hard drives on 3 and 4 and the disc drives on 1 & 2 but from memory I think I had terrible trouble booting XP on a set up like that.

 

Can I get some suggestions please!

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Post your /etc/fstab file. From there you can tell where everything is currently.

 

IDE1: hda(master), hdb(slave)

IDE2: hdc, hdd

IDE3: hde,hdf

IDE4: hdg,hdh

 

I think you get the idea. Also, are you planning on reinstalling your OSs?

 

I was hoping not to have to reinstall XP in the perhaps vain hope that it would boot and look after itself. Apart from having to phone Microsoft to get a new code. But Intend to load 9.1 when the time comes.

 

The main thing would be to ditch the zip drive. Everything else can stay where it is if it has to. But as Linux isn't detected by Windows anyway it should be ok to move that drive as well. (Hopefully) I might just backup everything and pray! Maybe its possible to stick xp in the drive and just reinstall it like I used to do 98?

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Well, as far as finding out what's going on on a running system, you can cat /etc/mtab or do a df... all sorts of ways.

sh-2.05b$ df -h

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

rootfs                 35G  6.5G   26G  20% /

/dev/root              35G  6.5G   26G  20% /

shm                   442M     0  441M   0% /dev/shm

tmpfs                 442M  4.0k  441M   1% /var/lock

tmpfs                 442M   16k  441M   1% /var/run

tmpfs                 256M  208k  255M   1% /tmp

/devices/discs/disc0/part1

                      99M  7.0M   86M   8% /boot

/devices/discs/disc1/part1

                      28G   25G  2.0G  93% /home

/devices/discs/disc2/part1

                      55G   46G  6.8G  87% /media

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I'm not too sure that this is a big help:

 

/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1

none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0

/dev/hda7 /home ext3 defaults 1 2

none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

none /mnt/cdrom2 supermount dev=/dev/hde,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

/dev/hdc1 /mnt/nt ntfs iocharset=iso8859-15,ro,umask=0 0 0

/dev/hdc5 /mnt/windows vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

none /mnt/zip supermount dev=/dev/sda4,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

none /proc proc defaults 0 0

/dev/hda6 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2

/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0

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Actually, it tells you quite a lot. Your linux hard drive is on IDE1 master. Your windows hard drive is on IDE2 master. Your cdrom drive is on IDE3 master. Both your cdwriter and your zip drive are running under scsi emulation which is normal but their hdx is not listed in fstab as a result. You can get their hdx listing by looking in /etc/lilo.conf. Look under the "linux" entry on the "Append" line. You should see entries in this form:

 

hdx=ide-scsi

 

This is what tells your system to run hdx under scsi emulation.

 

If your booting into XP ok now, I would leave the hard drives where they are. I not that familiar with XP and it may be less problems down the road if windows is on IDE1. Windows seems to like to be first and doesn't play well with others so you may want to consider swapping the two drives around. I'd be concerned how windows would react if you were later to put a fat32 partition that windows can see on your linux drive. Changing your windows drive to IDE1 shouldn't be a problem for windows if you restore the windows mbr before installing your new mandrake. There are many threads on this forum explaining how to do this. As far as your cdwriter goes, I'd put it on any open IDE channel configured as master and dump the zip drive.

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well all i can say is feel free to send me your zip drive!

 

:D

 

You can have it and the assorted zip disks :

4 * 250 and some others 5 * 100MB

for the cost of postage and the plastic plate you take out of your case to install the hard drive so that I have something to cover the gaping hole where my zip drive used to be....

Disks are all used. Have been formatted and are ready to go.

 

 

I pulled it last night and as far as I know its in good working order. I am really busy at the moment so it would take me a week to get it together.

 

PM me if your interested I don't want it cluttering up the house. I was going to try and sell it at uni but they all use Windows...

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OK

 

Left XP and Linux drives where they are.

 

Due to the fact that the motherboard is in the way of the drive bay and I've only got short IDE cables left my new configuration looks like this:

 

Linux IDE 1 as Master

XP IDE 2 as Master

 

Put CD Writer on IDE 3 as Master

 

Moved DVD to IDE 4 as Master

 

Boots into both Linux and XP no problems but DVD on 4 has gone MIA in Linux but not in XP.

 

Pretty good so far !

 

Now do I have to edit lilo.conf or fstab.

 

You know since 8.0 I've never had to set anything up myself and I've forgottern how!

 

I'll take on board what you said about a dos partiton on the Linux hard drive but at the moment I have a huge Dos partition on my larger XP drive so I've no worries. In fact I'm thinking of making it smaller but one thing at a time.

 

AND I didn't even have to phone Bill for permission to change my own hardware, thanks Bill much appreciated.

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And

 

There are two particular jumper settings on the motherboard:

 

Promise controller Enable Promise (Default)

What does this mean I thought it was the Raid controller which I think I want to disable??

 

Or is this the bit that gives me the two extra IDE channels. It's hard to tell form the manual as it was obviously translated by babelfish while the server was drunk!

 

 

I'm happy with this:

ATA 100 mode (Default) Disables Raid enables ATA 100

 

The default settings seem to be in conflict but maybe thats just the way the manual is worded?

 

 

I put most of this machine together myself but I'm damned if I can remember why I'm doing what I'm doing or if I ever did it in the first place :?

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To try to get your DVD back, try some things..

 

1. Use a specific master / slave settings for each device instead of cable select (automatic).

 

2. Try disconnecting your cd drive and see if you dvd shows up.

 

3. Try swaping the dvd and the cd connections.

 

4. Try putting hard drive + cdrom (use original configuration that came with computer) and 2nd hard drive + dvd (this actually solved my problem when i upgraded to a second drive)

 

Be methodical about it and write down what you have tried so you cover the possibilities.

 

Also I have fat32 partitions on my linux drive and windows 2k doesn't care. I made them in the extended partition.

 

Here's your fstab file again. You can see its easier to read this way. You can edit your /etc/fstab file and format it. The # of course is a comment..

 

#HDA drive

/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1

/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0

/dev/hda6 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2

/dev/hda7 /home ext3 defaults 1 2

 

#HDC drive

/dev/hdc1 /mnt/nt ntfs iocharset=iso8859-15,ro,umask=0 0 0

/dev/hdc5 /mnt/windows vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

 

# Removable media

none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

none /mnt/cdrom2 supermount dev=/dev/hde,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

none /mnt/zip supermount dev=/dev/sda4,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

 

#Other devices

none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0

none /proc proc defaults 0 0

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thanks:

 

I will try out those suggestions over the next couple of days, I've tried just about enough for today!

 

Everything boots and is detected by Windows so I know it can be got to work under Linux CD-Writer is working and thats most important for today.

 

Linux is recognising IDE 1, 2 & 3 at the moment and I haven't done anything except swap things around Physically I haven't edited anything but gnome Toaster still seems quite happy. There was bother with the DVD-ROM even before I started messing around so its no great loss.

It's one of those generic drives that comes with mass produced PC's and this is the third machine its been in! It'll work eventually!

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If you have your dvd drive on IDE4 master, I think it's clear from reading your /etc/fstab that you have no entry for it. Remember, IDE4 master = /dev/hdg. Try editing your /etc/fstab line for cdrom from /dev/scd0 to /dev/hdg. I would try this before swapping drives around. The easiest way to do this if your not familiar with console text editors like vi is to run the following command from root:

 

# kedit /etc/fstab

 

This will open up fstab in kedit which works like an ordinary word processor. Make the above chages and save them, reboot and see if your dvd drive works.

 

The only thing I question is your cdwriter. Are you sure it's on IDE3 master? If it is that would make it /dev/hde. The only way a CDwriter can write cds is if it runs under scsi emulation however it will work fine as a cdrom drive without it. Your line in fstab for /dev/hde (cdrom2) shows it is not running under scsi emulation and therefore it should not be able to burn cds. If it can, you must have misidentified which IDE chanel your cdwriter is on and you should hold off making the above edit because your cdwriter may be running on /dev/scd0 (cdrom) entry.

 

To clear up this confusion, you may want to go into your system setup BIOS and check your IDE configuration. It should list everything and then you will know for sure.

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fstab is from before I moved stuff about.

 

DVD is still missing and though CD-Writer appears to be detected by Gnome Toaster it actually isn't. It's just operating on old settings. So Gtoaster believes in it though it isn't there anymore.

 

I can still use it to read stuff from although it's being detected as my DVD. As it should be because its on the channel where my dvd used to be.

 

Theres no entry for IDE 4 as I never had anything on it before. There were problems as I remember with the zip drive and Mandrake 8.0 / 8.1

so everything was slaved to the two hard drives apart from the DVD on IDE 3. That's why I'm trying to reconfigure things to put one device on one channel.

 

Not to worry guys I'll learn something even if its only "don't use the BIG HAMMER"

 

I haven't done much since this morning as I had an assignment to do in Access. I'll be installing 9.1 soon anyway (DV) so theres no reason to get too excited. I will do all that you suggest as soon as escape from Windows.

 

Sorry for all the confusion. I'm not well enough organised. I had a lot of studying to do today and should have left messing my drives about until I had more time.

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