aphelion Posted April 18, 2008 Report Share Posted April 18, 2008 How does a hard drive be not Linux compatible? is it just that the drive/drives in question are preformatted NTFS, and if so, can it not just be formatted for Linux, just as things are done now, or is there something else going on here? Article http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=8121 [moved from Talk-Talk by spinynorman] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
{BBI}Nexus{BBI} Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 I assume it must be at firmware level. Anyway who cares, let Seagate (and all the others who shun GNU/Linux) die a thousand deaths. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 (edited) From the article: "...But it does not excuse the painfully obvious cue from Microsoft that the drives in question have apparently been preformatted as NTFS. " That's the only thing (that the article mentions) that makes them "not Linux compatible" which is quite an exaggeration, since all you have to do is delete that partition and create a new Linux-compatible one. I don't see the big deal...they are saving most of their customers the time it takes to format a drive, which on large ATA drives can be quite a while. [edit]: I did discover recently that my Sony DVD burner is no longer Linux-compatible (I used to be able to burn DVDs with it, but apparently the Linux kernel has surpassed the firmware on it). I tried moving the drive to my wife's computer to upgrade the firmware on it, but it still didn't work...so I just bought a new one (not Sony). Edited April 19, 2008 by Steve Scrimpshire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
{BBI}Nexus{BBI} Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 [edit]: I did discover recently that my Sony DVD burner is no longer Linux-compatible...What model number was it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aphelion Posted April 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 (edited) From the article:"...But it does not excuse the painfully obvious cue from Microsoft that the drives in question have apparently been preformatted as NTFS. " That's the only thing (that the article mentions) that makes them "not Linux compatible" which is quite an exaggeration, since all you have to do is delete that partition and create a new Linux-compatible one. That is what I though, and I just couldn't understand how anyone, by any stretch of the imagination could call that 'not Linux Compatible', I mean you got to format it anyway, you may as well say that all unformatted drives are incompatible. :huh: So I thought there must be something else. Anyway who cares I do, they are my preferred drive manufacturer. Edited April 19, 2008 by aphelion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
{BBI}Nexus{BBI} Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 I do, they are my preferred drive manufacturer.Well apparently GNU/Linux users are not their preferred customers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 What model number was it? Sony DRU500AX Just suddenly, one day I discovered Linux wouldn't recognize any media I put in it as burnable media. It would format it, but then say it could not be burned to. Media types I had burned to 100s of times before. (There was about a year or so since I had last burned a DVD on it.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
{BBI}Nexus{BBI} Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 Sony DRU500AX Just suddenly, one day I discovered Linux wouldn't recognize any media I put in it as burnable media. It would format it, but then say it could not be burned to. Media types I had burned to 100s of times before. (There was about a year or so since I had last burned a DVD on it.) Phew! Thanks for that, I have a couple sitting in a box never been used. Not that model thank goodness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 That's just a stupid stupid article. For a start... you can reformat a hard disk And secondly, Linux SUPPORTS NTFS. Google ntfs-3g, fast, stable NTFS support. And it's seamless as any other file system (unless your distro has it implemented crappily). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 [edit]: I did discover recently that my Sony DVD burner is no longer Linux-compatible (I used to be able to burn DVDs with it, but apparently the Linux kernel has surpassed the firmware on it). I tried moving the drive to my wife's computer to upgrade the firmware on it, but it still didn't work...so I just bought a new one (not Sony). Doesnt neccesarily mean that it's "linux incompatible". Could be a kernel/cdrecord bug getting in the way. Particularly seeing as it used to work. I dislike sony as much as the next person.... but -- If it worked on Linux when the drive came out... and the kernel was upgraded and the drive stopped working -- that's not sony's fault. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted April 21, 2008 Report Share Posted April 21, 2008 WD has always said they don't support Linux on the hard drives (unless they changed this recently). Seems like all Seagate is doing is saying the same thing (except also formatting it NTFS). Probably just means if you install linux, have a problem, and contact their tech support you'll get the "go away, we don't support your kind here" response. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 WD has always said they don't support Linux on the hard drives (unless they changed this recently). Seems like all Seagate is doing is saying the same thing (except also formatting it NTFS). Probably just means if you install linux, have a problem, and contact their tech support you'll get the "go away, we don't support your kind here" response. there's nothing from Seagate that actually says that they "aren't supporting Linux". Just a stupid article with no references. Given the amount of sales in drives for servers and large storage... seagate are hardly going to say to those users "something wrong? oh you run linux, your problem" anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted April 23, 2008 Report Share Posted April 23, 2008 (edited) I still have one Sony DRU500AX. I paid for it a lot of money (405$) some six years ago. It's one of the last drives actually made by Sony- after that they began rebranding Lite-On drives. The drive is working perfectly well under linux, but it has big trouble with most modern media dyes (media brands are not relevant, as they usually pack whatever dye is available at the time as "Brand X"). The cure could be new firmware by Sony, but this will never happen, and besides that, a brand new burner costs 40$ or something like that... I'd call it media incompatibility, not Linux incompatibility. Edited April 23, 2008 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted April 23, 2008 Report Share Posted April 23, 2008 I never buy Sony mainly because of their incompatibility problems. Just like Canon printers because of the lack of Linux support - unless of course you don't mind shelling out for turboprint drivers. Anyway, Seagate have just had their disk pre-formatted with NTFS. Your USB sticks are pre-formatted with FAT16 or FAT32. So is that a problem for you also? It's the same scenario. Windows users make up the majority of the population but this is changing. However, either using ntfs-3g or deleting and re-partitioning is all you need to do to use it. It isn't that it isn't compatible in terms of that you cannot see the disk, or even see it but not format it because it's blocked :huh: When you initially installed Linux, you would have re-partitioned your hard drive from Windows to install it ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coverup Posted April 23, 2008 Report Share Posted April 23, 2008 there's nothing from Seagate that actually says that they "aren't supporting Linux". Just a stupid article with no references. Given the amount of sales in drives for servers and large storage... seagate are hardly going to say to those users "something wrong? oh you run linux, your problem" anyway. Well, servers aren't laptops. This article suggests the HDD killer is laptop-mode http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2007/10/2...ive-killer-bug/Is there any substance in this report? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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