Hard Disk problem.

[Sydney]

On an Acer aspire machine the OS is dead .
The recovery partition cannot be accessed for an unknown reason. Windows
7 from another dvdrom doesn't install itself It says it cannot find the
files.
Finally I installed the OS on a new disk using the same DVDrom

NOw I want to reuse the previous 750 GB Hard Disk.
Gparted sees 2 partitions: One recovery 15 GB partition and one 683 GB
NTFS. I erased the NTFS. Now the complete disk installed as a slave disk
on a different computer, cannot be recognized by the Bios. Windows sees
it with the disk manager (administrative tools) but the explorer does
not see it.
Question How to qualify the disk ?

Thanks a lot !
Sydney

 

[Paul]

On an Acer aspire machine the OS is dead .
The recovery partition cannot be accessed for an unknown reason. Windows
7 from another dvdrom doesn't install itself It says it cannot find the
files.
Finally I installed the OS on a new disk using the same DVDrom

NOw I want to reuse the previous 750 GB Hard Disk.
Gparted sees 2 partitions: One recovery 15 GB partition and one 683 GB
NTFS. I erased the NTFS. Now the complete disk installed as a slave disk
on a different computer, cannot be recognized by the Bios. Windows sees
it with the disk manager (administrative tools) but the explorer does
not see it.
Question How to qualify the disk ?

Thanks a lot !
Sydney

If you removed all the partitions, it's not going to show up in
the File Explorer. You can see it in Disk Management, you can
click on the unallocated section and create a new (NTFS) partition.

I can't explain for sure, why the BIOS can't see it.

I have one older motherboard here, which cannot tolerate an MBR
which is all-zeros. So some BIOS are a bit too worried about the
contents of the MBR (looking for the AA55 in bytes 511 and 512).
For that motherboard, I have to use another computer to prepare
a drive that the motherboard is guaranteed to accept.

If you tell me what the motherboard is, that cannot see the drive,
I may be able to explain it. Some older motherboards, with SATA RAID
chips, refuse to show a single disk, and only respond when two disks
are present (for a RAID 0 or a RAID 1). In addition, the SIL3112
had a code bug, where drives 1TB or above, would cause the BIOS
to freeze. There were a few things like that, early in the
life of SATA. Any modern chips are pretty good. VIA chips
like VT8237, have a bug where negotiation fails on a SATA II drive
connected to the VT8237 SATA I (150MB/sec) port. There are some
odd cases with SATA III, but for those, you're better off Googling
the hard drive model number, to dig up evidence. There are always
a few models of hardware toys out there, that have quirks all their
own (actual design flaws).

Paul

 

[Sydney]

Le 25/03/2014 09:16, Paul a écrit :

If you removed all the partitions, it's not going to show up in
the File Explorer. You can see it in Disk Management, you can
click on the unallocated section and create a new (NTFS) partition.

I can't explain for sure, why the BIOS can't see it.

I have one older motherboard here, which cannot tolerate an MBR
which is all-zeros. So some BIOS are a bit too worried about the
contents of the MBR (looking for the AA55 in bytes 511 and 512).
For that motherboard, I have to use another computer to prepare
a drive that the motherboard is guaranteed to accept.

If you tell me what the motherboard is, that cannot see the drive,
I may be able to explain it. Some older motherboards, with SATA RAID
chips, refuse to show a single disk, and only respond when two disks
are present (for a RAID 0 or a RAID 1). In addition, the SIL3112
had a code bug, where drives 1TB or above, would cause the BIOS
to freeze. There were a few things like that, early in the
life of SATA. Any modern chips are pretty good. VIA chips
like VT8237, have a bug where negotiation fails on a SATA II drive
connected to the VT8237 SATA I (150MB/sec) port. There are some
odd cases with SATA III, but for those, you're better off Googling
the hard drive model number, to dig up evidence. There are always
a few models of hardware toys out there, that have quirks all their
own (actual design flaws).

Paul

I created a simple volume in the unallocated section with Disk
Management. When I tried to (quick or complete) format, windows answers
it cannot format.
I wonder what will happen if i boot with a ubuntu live cd and use
gparted software.

 

[Paul]

Le 25/03/2014 09:16, Paul a écrit :
I created a simple volume in the unallocated section with Disk
Management. When I tried to (quick or complete) format, windows answers
it cannot format.
I wonder what will happen if i boot with a ubuntu live cd and use
gparted software.

So the BIOS sees the hard drive now ?

You can use GParted if you want. While there, it depends on whether
you want a legacy DOS alignment, or a newer megabyte alignment, as
to how you set it up.

I use CHS divisible-by-63 alignment for my hard drives here. An OS
like WinXP does that by default.

OSes like Vista/Win7/Win8 and also Linux, now favor megabyte alignment.
Older partition management tools, don't like megabyte alignment.
For example, if I show a copy of Partition Magic, a partition
prepared in GParted or Windows 7 (with a megabyte alignment),
it might complain about that, and Partition Magic could exit without
presenting the GUI.

"Specifying Partition Alignment"
http://www.gparted.org/display-doc.php?name=help-manual#gparted-specify-partition-size-and-location

Paul

 

[Sydney]

Le 28/03/2014 08:05, Paul a écrit :

So the BIOS sees the hard drive now ?

You can use GParted if you want. While there, it depends on whether
you want a legacy DOS alignment, or a newer megabyte alignment, as
to how you set it up.

I use CHS divisible-by-63 alignment for my hard drives here. An OS
like WinXP does that by default.

OSes like Vista/Win7/Win8 and also Linux, now favor megabyte alignment.
Older partition management tools, don't like megabyte alignment.
For example, if I show a copy of Partition Magic, a partition
prepared in GParted or Windows 7 (with a megabyte alignment),
it might complain about that, and Partition Magic could exit without
presenting the GUI.

"Specifying Partition Alignment"
http://www.gparted.org/display-doc.php?name=help-manual#gparted-specify-partition-size-and-location


Paul

I managed to install ubuntu 12.04 on it . The DVD installer took care
of everything.
Now at the reboot I got the following message

Hdo out of disk
grub rescue


which I mention for your information. I moved this new subject to Ubuntu
French community group Thanks a lot

 

[Paul]

Le 28/03/2014 08:05, Paul a écrit :
I managed to install ubuntu 12.04 on it . The DVD installer took care
of everything.
Now at the reboot I got the following message

Hdo out of disk
grub rescue


which I mention for your information. I moved this new subject to Ubuntu
French community group Thanks a lot

The error might be "HD0 out of disk". Where the disk identifier
is a grub reference to the disk, rather than a file system
reference such as HDA or SDA.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ne...tallation-error-hd0-out-disk-grub-rescue.html

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Rescue Mode

A tool they're using seems to be "Boot Info Script".

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1291280

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

And that seems to be a tool for examining the various
"stages" of GRUB, as stored on the hard drive. Stage 1
might be the MBR, Stage 1.5 some sectors below sector 63,
the next stage within the /boot partition (VBR) and so on.
Maybe the Boot Info Script can tell you how the GRUB
boot installation step, failed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GNU_GRUB_on_MBR_partitioned_hard_disk_drives.svg

Paul

 

[Sydney]

Le 05/04/2014 00:01, Paul a écrit :

The error might be "HD0 out of disk". Where the disk identifier
is a grub reference to the disk, rather than a file system
reference such as HDA or SDA.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ne...tallation-error-hd0-out-disk-grub-rescue.html


https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Rescue Mode

A tool they're using seems to be "Boot Info Script".

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1291280

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

And that seems to be a tool for examining the various
"stages" of GRUB, as stored on the hard drive. Stage 1
might be the MBR, Stage 1.5 some sectors below sector 63,
the next stage within the /boot partition (VBR) and so on.
Maybe the Boot Info Script can tell you how the GRUB
boot installation step, failed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GNU_GRUB_on_MBR_partitioned_hard_disk_drives.svg


Paul

Paul
Thanks a lot for your always informative answers . I apreciate also the
mentionned links . I follow the French community on the same subject.
Bootinfo is also there.