Boot sector problem with Vista? Howto load Linux onto a clean,formated HD?

[raylopez99]

Hi all, including you nuts at C.O.L.A--laugh all you want.

System in question: Core 2 Duo (E65xx, 2.33 GHz), ConRoe 1333-D667
Mobo, 2 GB PC 667 RAM, one 233 SATAII HD. OS that will not boot up
into the HD (but installs): Vista Ultimate

I need some encouragement along the lines of "seen that", rather than
specific advice.

Vista Ultimate OS seems to load and install (i.e. I can tell using
various CD-ROM utilities that it seems to be sitting on the NTFS
formated HD) but the system, once past the POST stage, won't boot into
the HD but hangs (though it does work off the CD/DVD). Tried playing
with various boot sequences, but nothing seems to work.

Installing Vista: when Vista gets to the menu window: Copy Windows |
Expand files | Install feature | Complete Install | and then reboot
(after 10 seconds countdown) the system hangs after POST (blinking
underscore cursor). You can only boot into the CD-ROM (with a
bootable CD). Tried reformatting (using Acronis Disc manager CD) and
stripping down the system to no add-on graphics card (using the system
graphics port only) and no other cards, and still I get the same
problem.

Bought the above hardware very very cheap (Asia)--about 20% of the US
price. The seller managed to make it work, using a legal copy of
Windows Vista Ultimate. But he had problems doing so. I am pretty
experienced (about a half dozen systems built from scratch), so I
figured no problem. But the first hint of a problem was when trying
to load Windows 2000 from the reformatted (clean) HD--won't work
(supposed "invalid key" problem, not true). Then Windows XP, using
legal copies of the same, the same message "Invalid Key" (or along
those lines). But the keys are not invalid. So something on the boot
sector of the HD is corrupt I surmise.

Checked for viruses on the CD--but none. However, here is a
possibility: the Windows Ultimate DVD I'm using is a pirate version
(cost $3!), and often these have viruses (relax, I intend to register
with Microsoft, as I've done in the past--the pirate DVD was simply to
get the ball rolling rather than download or wait for a legal copy).
Though this pirate DVD passed all antivirus tests by Kaspersky and
others, there's a chance that an encrypted virus was on the disk that
was decrypted/unpacked during installation and now sits on my boot
sector, and somehow survives reformatting by the Acronis utility (also
I've been warm rebooting most of the time, which doesn't help).
However, to be frank, I doubt this is the reason. All contrary
opinions welcome.

Crappy MoBo BIOS settings might be the reason--but I did set the
defaults, set everything as plain as I could, and still no response.
However, system does work from the CD. Weird--anybody seen this
before?

Question: I just want to load an OS on this system--not Vista
necessarily. I'll even settle for Linux (I tried Linux Mandriva just
now, but the CD-ROM was not bootable--can anybody point me to a .ISO
format image file of a bootable Linux OS for a clean system like
mine?) [I also will reformat the HD to FAT32 once I get a bootable
LInux OS DVD/CD since I realize Linux doesn't recognize NTFS format]

Really what I'm looking for in this post is a reply by an experienced
installer who says: "been there, done that, it could be X,Y,Z...and
good luck". Morale support more than anything.

I'm going to bed now...four hours of battling this problem is enough
for one day. Luckily this system I'm going to give to a friend and
it's not needed to do my work, otherwise I'd be going frantic!

Thanks,

RL

 

[raylopez99]

Bought the above hardware very very cheap (Asia)--about 20% of the US
price. The seller managed to make it work, using a legal copy of
Windows Vista Ultimate. But he had problems doing so. I am pretty
experienced (about a half dozen systems built from scratch), so I
figured no problem. But the first hint of a problem was when trying
to load Windows 2000 from the reformatted (clean) HD--won't work
(supposed "invalid key" problem, not true). Then Windows XP, using
legal copies of the same, the same message "Invalid Key" (or along
those lines). But the keys are not invalid. So something on the boot
sector of the HD is corrupt I surmise.

I meant "load Windows 2000 onto the clean HD", using a CD of the same,
not "from" the HD.

Also what's weird is that I know this system can work, since the
seller had a legal copy of Windows Ultimate and made it work (after a
lot of reboots and fiddling to be sure).

But the main question is: not how to make Vista Ultimate work on this
particular system necessarily, but how to get *ANY OS* to load onto
this system (even Linux!). Tommorrow I will play around with Windows
98 and even DOS in an attempt to achieve this goal. And yes, Linux-
nuts, please do tell me of a distro to try...like I said I do have a
non-bootable (!) CD of Mandriva 2007, and "TinyLinux" (or somesuch
name) somewhere as well. I need a nice step by step HowTo (but no
need to be too specific since I'm not a rank beginner).

Please advise.

RL

 

[Linonut]

* raylopez99 fired off this tart reply:

But the main question is: not how to make Vista Ultimate work on this
particular system necessarily, but how to get *ANY OS* to load onto
this system (even Linux!). Tommorrow I will play around with Windows
98 and even DOS in an attempt to achieve this goal. And yes, Linux-
nuts, please do tell me of a distro to try...like I said I do have a
non-bootable (!) CD of Mandriva 2007, and "TinyLinux" (or somesuch
name) somewhere as well. I need a nice step by step HowTo (but no
need to be too specific since I'm not a rank beginner).

Please advise.

http://www.geeksquad.com/

 

[Erik Funkenbusch]

Really what I'm looking for in this post is a reply by an experienced
installer who says: "been there, done that, it could be X,Y,Z...and
good luck". Morale support more than anything.

I have seen the problem before. Things to check:

Do you have any USB devices attached? I know, stupid question, you've
already whittled it down, just double check. Some BIOS's can have goofy
results with certain USB devices attached.

Is the drive configured to be a primary master? Some bios's won't boot off
secondary or slave drives. Also, set it to Master explicitly, don't rely
on cable-select.

Try removing the CD-Rom after the OS is installed. Just for kicks.

Try "resetting" the BIOS to defaults. I've seen corrupted CMOS do that.
Also try clearing the CMOS via jumper.

Try something stupid, like download a DOS boot disk from bootdisk.com.

Swap out the IDE cable, i've seen bad cables cause all kinds of weird
issues. You may have to re-install because a bad pin on the cable could
mean it never wrote the data to the right sector.

If you have an older drive, even if it's ancient, try that.. just to see if
it's the drive itself causing problems.

If you have the ability to flash the BIOS to a later revision, try that
too.

 

[Jack R]

Hi all, including you nuts at C.O.L.A--laugh all you want.

System in question: Core 2 Duo (E65xx, 2.33 GHz), ConRoe 1333-D667
Mobo, 2 GB PC 667 RAM, one 233 SATAII HD. OS that will not boot up
into the HD (but installs): Vista Ultimate

I need some encouragement along the lines of "seen that", rather than
specific advice.

Vista Ultimate OS seems to load and install (i.e. I can tell using
various CD-ROM utilities that it seems to be sitting on the NTFS
formated HD) but the system, once past the POST stage, won't boot into
the HD but hangs (though it does work off the CD/DVD). Tried playing
with various boot sequences, but nothing seems to work.

Installing Vista: when Vista gets to the menu window: Copy Windows |
Expand files | Install feature | Complete Install | and then reboot
(after 10 seconds countdown) the system hangs after POST (blinking
underscore cursor). You can only boot into the CD-ROM (with a
bootable CD). Tried reformatting (using Acronis Disc manager CD) and
stripping down the system to no add-on graphics card (using the system
graphics port only) and no other cards, and still I get the same
problem.

Bought the above hardware very very cheap (Asia)--about 20% of the US
price. The seller managed to make it work, using a legal copy of
Windows Vista Ultimate. But he had problems doing so. I am pretty
experienced (about a half dozen systems built from scratch), so I
figured no problem. But the first hint of a problem was when trying
to load Windows 2000 from the reformatted (clean) HD--won't work
(supposed "invalid key" problem, not true). Then Windows XP, using
legal copies of the same, the same message "Invalid Key" (or along
those lines). But the keys are not invalid. So something on the boot
sector of the HD is corrupt I surmise.

Checked for viruses on the CD--but none. However, here is a
possibility: the Windows Ultimate DVD I'm using is a pirate version
(cost $3!), and often these have viruses (relax, I intend to register
with Microsoft, as I've done in the past--the pirate DVD was simply to
get the ball rolling rather than download or wait for a legal copy).
Though this pirate DVD passed all antivirus tests by Kaspersky and
others, there's a chance that an encrypted virus was on the disk that
was decrypted/unpacked during installation and now sits on my boot
sector, and somehow survives reformatting by the Acronis utility (also
I've been warm rebooting most of the time, which doesn't help).
However, to be frank, I doubt this is the reason. All contrary
opinions welcome.

Crappy MoBo BIOS settings might be the reason--but I did set the
defaults, set everything as plain as I could, and still no response.
However, system does work from the CD. Weird--anybody seen this
before?

Question: I just want to load an OS on this system--not Vista
necessarily. I'll even settle for Linux (I tried Linux Mandriva just
now, but the CD-ROM was not bootable--can anybody point me to a .ISO
format image file of a bootable Linux OS for a clean system like
mine?) [I also will reformat the HD to FAT32 once I get a bootable
LInux OS DVD/CD since I realize Linux doesn't recognize NTFS format]

Really what I'm looking for in this post is a reply by an experienced
installer who says: "been there, done that, it could be X,Y,Z...and
good luck". Morale support more than anything.

I'm going to bed now...four hours of battling this problem is enough
for one day. Luckily this system I'm going to give to a friend and
it's not needed to do my work, otherwise I'd be going frantic!

Thanks,

RL

Two things...
Are you hitting 'F6' during the install and loading the SATA drivers?
If not, this may be why Vista doesn't see your drive.
2nd, try Ubuntu for a downloadable, bootable Linux distro:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
You can run it from the CD, or install.
IHTH,
Jack R

 

[ray]

Seeing as how this is posted to Linux groups, I guess you're looking for
advice along the lines of:

install a recent Linux distro on the same disk and let it sort out the
dual boot for you.

 

[raylopez99]

Two things...
Are you hitting 'F6' during the install and loading the SATA drivers?
If not, this may be why Vista doesn't see your drive.
2nd, try Ubuntu for a downloadable, bootable Linux distro:http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
You can run it from the CD, or install.
IHTH,
Jack R

Jack,
Tx. I'm downloading Ubuntu now, but it's gonna take 2 hours.

THis problem is, as I researched your suggestion more, a problem with
SATA drives. See a suggestion here: http://weblogs.asp.net/jkey/archive/2005/08/28/423901.aspx

But it 's gonna cost me at least a day...I'll report back any progress
made.

My latest thinking: try installing Windows2000 again but load the
driver for SATA Hitachi HD (if I can find it--it wasn't on the CD the
seller gave me).

See below.

Actually my latest thinking is that I have a spare IDE drive, and
since this is just a gift, I'll unload the SATA drives, which causes
real pain, and install an IDE drive. Maybe I'll use the Hitachi SATA
drive for another system.

RL

WikiAnswers:
First answer by 70.241.88.69. Last edit by 70.241.88.69. Question
popularity: 1 [recommend question]


INSTALLING WIN XP ON SATA DRIVE

YOU NEED TO LOAD 3RD PARTY DRIVERS WHEN INSTALLING XP FROM CD WATCH
CLOSE WHEN INSTALL START FOR "PRESS F6 FOR 3RD PARY DRIVERS" IT WILL
THEN KEEP LOADING WINDOWS AWHILE THEN STOP AND ASK FOR A FLOPPY WITH
YOU SATA/SCSI DRIVERS ON IT. YOU MAY HAVE TO SLAVE A FLOPPY IN JUST
FOR THIS OPERATION. YOU CAN USUALLY GET THESE DRIVERS OFF YOU
MOTHERBOARD DRIVERS CD OR THE MOTHERBOARD MANUFACTURES WEBSITE. I RUN
INTO THIS PROBLEM ON ABOUT 20-40% OF SATA DRIVES WHEN I NEED TO
INSTALL XP. GOOD LUCK

 

[raylopez99]

I have seen the problem before. Things to check:

Do you have any USB devices attached? I know, stupid question, you've
already whittled it down, just double check. Some BIOS's can have goofy
results with certain USB devices attached.

USB available but nothing in fact attached.

Is the drive configured to be a primary master? Some bios's won't boot off
secondary or slave drives. Also, set it to Master explicitly, don't rely
on cable-select.

Yes. set in BIOS.

Try removing the CD-Rom after the OS is installed. Just for kicks.

Too much bother. Jack in this thread is onto the real problem: SATA
drives cannot be used to load Windows unless you load external drivers
during the installation--you have six seconds to do so, and WIndows
before Vista does not recognize non-floppy drives! And this system
doesn't have a floppy (only a CD)! Screwed (unless you use a third
party 'slipstream' utility, see below).

Try "resetting" the BIOS to defaults. I've seen corrupted CMOS do that.
Also try clearing the CMOS via jumper.

Too much bother. But thanks.

Try something stupid, like download a DOS boot disk from bootdisk.com.

I will, but this will not fix anything (perhaps). I'm almost sure of
it. You will get DOS to install, but unless you want to use DOS,
you're soon back to square one (perhaps). Recall: I do get Vista to
install, though the system hangs on reboot (I'm using Bart's PE CD to
spy on the Sata HD once the installation of Vista "hangs", and I can
see that stuff exists on the HD from Vista, including game folders
like Chess and Minesweeper, so Vista is seeing the HD and doing stuff
to it).

Swap out the IDE cable, i've seen bad cables cause all kinds of weird
issues. You may have to re-install because a bad pin on the cable could
mean it never wrote the data to the right sector.

If you have an older drive, even if it's ancient, try that.. just to see if
it's the drive itself causing problems.

Yes, good point, I will install IDE not SATA. This is my latest
workaround. Otherwise I'd have to do all kinds of tricks including
using a third party utility to 'slipstream' the installation using a
CD with SATA drivers (which for Hitachi I'm having a hard time
finding) burned in: see: http://weblogs.asp.net/jkey/archive/2005/08/28/423901.aspx

Verdict: installation of OSes suck, and I doubt Linux is any
better.

If you have the ability to flash the BIOS to a later revision, try that
too.

This bios is from this year. Not the problem.

Oh well, I didn't spend that much money so I can't complain (one-fifth
of US prices). I'll simply use the SATA HD as a secondary HD, use an
older IDE as the primary HD, and see if that works. I'll report back
my results. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

RL

 

[Kier]

Verdict: installation of OSes suck, and I doubt Linux is any
better.

Well, actually, in that you would be quite wrong. Linux is, for the most
part, amazingly easy to install. I should know, since I've installed a
great many distros on various machines, both laptop and desktop, over the
past few years. At first it was a modest challenge, but nowadays it's a
breeze.

For one thing, the modern distros all have built in partioning tools
(Mandriva is one of the best in this regard, their GUI partitioner is
absolutely excellent and very straight-forward and simple to use and
understand). Also, most a the required drivers for hardware and present
upion installation. YOu can also choose what software you want to install,
or just go for the defaults.

Most distros will also pick up any Windows installation and add it to the
sequence so it can be chosen at boot time.

So basically, unless you are very unlucky with your hardware - which tends
to happen less and less these days - installing Linux doesn't suck at all.

 

[Linonut]

* raylopez99 fired off this tart reply:

INSTALLING WIN XP ON SATA DRIVE

YOU NEED TO LOAD 3RD PARTY DRIVERS WHEN INSTALLING XP FROM CD WATCH
CLOSE WHEN INSTALL START FOR "PRESS F6 FOR 3RD PARY DRIVERS" IT WILL
THEN KEEP LOADING WINDOWS AWHILE THEN STOP AND ASK FOR A FLOPPY WITH
YOU SATA/SCSI DRIVERS ON IT. YOU MAY HAVE TO SLAVE A FLOPPY IN JUST
FOR THIS OPERATION. YOU CAN USUALLY GET THESE DRIVERS OFF YOU
MOTHERBOARD DRIVERS CD OR THE MOTHERBOARD MANUFACTURES WEBSITE. I RUN
INTO THIS PROBLEM ON ABOUT 20-40% OF SATA DRIVES WHEN I NEED TO
INSTALL XP. GOOD LUCK

SATA used to be a problem when installed Debian. The install would fail
if you were installing the 2.6 kernel. You had to install the 2.4
kernel, and then later figure out how to install the 2.6 kernel yourself
and switch all your partitions from the /dev/hdN naming to /dev/sdN
naming.

These days, the only problem I run into is when building a new kernel
from the install .config -- for some reason sata_nv (Nvidia chipset)
isn't picked up by mkinitrd. The workaround is easy, just compile it
into the kernel.

 

[Rex Ballard]

I had problems installing "Generic" XP onto SATA drives, but I had no
problem installing SUSE Linux 10.

USB available but nothing in fact attached.

I will assume that you've checked you boot sequence. You probably
want to make sure that your primary SATA drive has been properly
installed. The BIOS also has a "Compatibility" mode for the SATA
drives. This may have been defaulted to the harder to support AHCI
interface. The compatibility mode lets the BIOS "emulate" an IDE
drive (OS sees the drive as IDE instead of SATA). This does prevent
the command queing features of SATA-II.

SATA drives don't have any selection jumpers. Since the SATA cables
are smaller, it's easier to run 4 separate cables instead of two
multiconnector "bus" cables.

Yes. set in BIOS.


Too much bother. Jack in this thread is onto the real problem: SATA
drives cannot be used to load Windows unless you load external drivers
during the installation--you have six seconds to do so, and WIndows
before Vista does not recognize non-floppy drives! And this system
doesn't have a floppy (only a CD)! Screwed (unless you use a third
party 'slipstream' utility, see below).

Check the BIOS, make sure that you are not using the AHCI settings.
Those familiar with Linux know that AHCI is often used with FireWire
drives, it allows the host to sent a series of commands in sequence
and have them asynchronously executed, when the requests are
completed, the host is alerted. Linux has good support for this, but
only commercial distributions have it compiled into the kernel. If
you have an SD drive or can boot off of IDE or USB drive, you can put
the root partition on that drive and let modprobe discover the AHCI
interface and mount the AHCI SATA-II drives in high-performance mode.
The simpler solution is to just set "Compatibility Mode". Normally,
unless you are using your desktop for a relational database of several
million records, you will have a hard time telling the difference.
Linux will still try to optimize for the real track and cylinder size
rather than using the default LBA settings.

Too much bother. But thanks.

Resetting to defaults would probably set you back to AHCI mode.

Yes, good point, I will install IDE not SATA. This is my latest
workaround.

On Windows, there is very little difference in performance. On Linux,
you will see a substantial increase in performance with the SATA
drives, especially SATA-II drives. This is assuming that both drives
are 7200 RPM drives.

Otherwise I'd have to do all kinds of tricks including
using a third party utility to 'slipstream' the installation using a
CD with SATA drivers (which for Hitachi I'm having a hard time
finding) burned in: see:http://weblogs.asp.net/jkey/archive/2005/08/28/423901.aspx

Do you know which motherboard you are using? The board in the cite
above was using VIA chipsets.

Verdict: installation of OSes suck, and I doubt Linux is any better.

You might still have the AHCI problem, but ti's trivial to "fix". I
had no trouble installing SUSE 10.2 and SLED 10 into SATA-II drives.

This bios is from this year. Not the problem.

It's still a good idea to check. Often, newer boards, especially
those with SATA-II drives were released before the standards were
finalized. Even my T61p Thinkpad had a new flash for the SATA-II BIOS
interfaces.

The main difference beteen SATA-I and SATA-II drives is the higher
speed serial bus. Some mothereboards also have support for SAS
(Serial Attached SCSI) as well. Some new flashes let you "mix and
match" SAS and SATA drives. In much the way Linux squeezes more
peformance from SCSI drives, it also milks performance out of SAS
drives as well, especially if you configure multiple drives in RAID.

Oh well, I didn't spend that much money so I can't complain (one-fifth
of US prices). I'll simply use the SATA HD as a secondary HD, use an
older IDE as the primary HD, and see if that works. I'll report back
my results. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

Looking forward to seeing your final solution.

 

[raylopez99]

SATA used to be a problem when installed Debian. The install would fail
if you were installing the 2.6 kernel. You had to install the 2.4
kernel, and then later figure out how to install the 2.6 kernel yourself
and switch all your partitions from the /dev/hdN naming to /dev/sdN
naming.

These days, the only problem I run into is when building a new kernel
from the install .config -- for some reason sata_nv (Nvidia chipset)
isn't picked up by mkinitrd. The workaround is easy, just compile it
into the kernel.

Listen to you, Linonut. You are quite the pro. Imagine now, somebody
like me, who actually programs as a hobby (using the super user
friendly MS Visual Studio suite for C#, C++.NET), not being able to
install an OS easily where the HDs are SATA. Now picture Joe and
Sally Average trying to do it.

No wonder Linux has <1% market share.

RL

 

[raylopez99]

I had problems installing "Generic" XP onto SATA drives, but I had no
problem installing SUSE Linux 10.

OK, a vote for SUSE linux 10. If the distro fits on a CD, if my
present efforts fail I might try it.

I will assume that you've checked you boot sequence. You probably
want to make sure that your primary SATA drive has been properly
installed. The BIOS also has a "Compatibility" mode for the SATA
drives. This may have been defaulted to the harder to support AHCI
interface. The compatibility mode lets the BIOS "emulate" an IDE
drive (OS sees the drive as IDE instead of SATA). This does prevent
the command queing features of SATA-II.

Interesting. I just checked out AHCI on Wikipedia and it looks
tough. I think you may be onto something, since the BIOS mentioned
"spread spectrum" is the default for SATA on this board (the mobo is a
cheap but somewhat functional product by ASRock ConRoe133-D667 release
2.0)--it only has one IDE slot for example which necessitated hooking
the DVD/CD as a "slave" to the EIDE I am using now as a primary HD-see
my previous post just now to this thread)

SATA drives don't have any selection jumpers. Since the SATA cables
are smaller, it's easier to run 4 separate cables instead of two
multiconnector "bus" cables.

True, true. SATA is nice and fast but on this system hard to
configure.

Check the BIOS, make sure that you are not using the AHCI settings.
Those familiar with Linux know that AHCI is often used with FireWire
drives, it allows the host to sent a series of commands in sequence
and have them asynchronously executed, when the requests are
completed, the host is alerted. Linux has good support for this, but
only commercial distributions have it compiled into the kernel. If
you have an SD drive or can boot off of IDE or USB drive, you can put
the root partition on that drive and let modprobe discover the AHCI
interface and mount the AHCI SATA-II drives in high-performance mode.
The simpler solution is to just set "Compatibility Mode". Normally,
unless you are using your desktop for a relational database of several
million records, you will have a hard time telling the difference.
Linux will still try to optimize for the real track and cylinder size
rather than using the default LBA settings.

OK, but you're talking to yourself and others as equally knowledgeable
at this point. I code for fun, have a technical background, have
rewired a house and done plumbing and auto repair, and I can't figure
it out. What chance does Joe Average have? No wonder DELL got so
big--and WIndows.

Resetting to defaults would probably set you back to AHCI mode.


On Windows, there is very little difference in performance. On Linux,
you will see a substantial increase in performance with the SATA
drives, especially SATA-II drives. This is assuming that both drives
are 7200 RPM drives.

Interesting. I did not know not much performance difference. Thanks
for the tip, it makes me feel better, though this system is a gift to
a non-power user who could care less about performance. Yes, both are
7200 RPM drives. I take it you are not convinced that Windows Vista
Ultimate (64 bit edition) can get the extra performance out of SATA
drives. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if 64 bit Vista is not that
much faster than 32 bit XP, since most software and drivers are not
written in 64 bit. But this Core 2 Duo chip is 64 bit so I'd like to
see it with a 'true' OS--if you have a LInux distro that optimizes 64
bits let me know, and I'll see if I can get another cheap chip and
build such a system (I got this chip at a price so low you'd think it
was stolen, but it's not--prices in Asia where I got it are 20% of USA
prices--talk about grey market arbitrage opportunities).

You might still have the AHCI problem, but ti's trivial to "fix". I
had no trouble installing SUSE 10.2 and SLED 10 into SATA-II drives.



It's still a good idea to check. Often, newer boards, especially
those with SATA-II drives were released before the standards were
finalized. Even my T61p Thinkpad had a new flash for the SATA-II BIOS
interfaces.

The main difference beteen SATA-I and SATA-II drives is the higher
speed serial bus. Some mothereboards also have support for SAS
(Serial Attached SCSI) as well. Some new flashes let you "mix and
match" SAS and SATA drives. In much the way Linux squeezes more
peformance from SCSI drives, it also milks performance out of SAS
drives as well, especially if you configure multiple drives in RAID.


Looking forward to seeing your final solution.

Later, thanks for the tips,
RL

 

[dapunka]

Listen to you, Linonut. You are quite the pro. Imagine now, somebody
like me, who actually programs as a hobby (using the super user
friendly MS Visual Studio suite for C#, C++.NET), not being able to
install an OS easily where the HDs are SATA. Now picture Joe and
Sally Average trying to do it.

No wonder Linux has <1% market share.

You must be deliberately misreading what Linonut said. He says that
SATA /used/ to be a problem; that nowadays he runs into problems when
building a new kernel. Joe and Sally Average are unlikely to be
building new kernels, don't you think?

And anyway, you haven't even tried to install Linux yet. You haven't
even downloaded it yet.

So please tell us: how does Linonut's comment explain why "Linux has
<1% market share"?

 

[Erik Funkenbusch]

Interesting. I just checked out AHCI on Wikipedia and it looks
tough. I think you may be onto something, since the BIOS mentioned
"spread spectrum" is the default for SATA on this board (the mobo is a
cheap but somewhat functional product by ASRock ConRoe133-D667 release
2.0)--it only has one IDE slot for example which necessitated hooking
the DVD/CD as a "slave" to the EIDE I am using now as a primary HD-see
my previous post just now to this thread)

Spread Spectrum is not a setting for hard disks, that's a memory setting,
typically used to reduce problems with electrically noisy environments.

You also want to make sure it's not in RAID mode if such a mode is
available, usually you have to disable RAID or set RAID mode to "Legacy" or
SATA or something like that.

True, true. SATA is nice and fast but on this system hard to
configure.

Sorry, didn't notice that it was SATA. It's still strange, because you
should at least get to the boot manager.

Have you tried pressing F8 just after POST (you might have to do it
repeatedly) to see if the boot menu comes up?

 

[raylopez99]

You also want to make sure it's not in RAID mode if such a mode is
available, usually you have to disable RAID or set RAID mode to "Legacy" or
SATA or something like that.

Sorry, didn't notice that it was SATA. It's still strange, because you
should at least get to the boot manager.

Have you tried pressing F8 just after POST (you might have to do it
repeatedly) to see if the boot menu comes up?

Thanks Erik, I'll take note of this for future reference and when I
install a SATA non-primary, secondary drive to the EIDE that's the C:
drive.

RL

 

[Linonut]

* raylopez99 fired off this tart reply:

Listen to you, Linonut. You are quite the pro. Imagine now, somebody
like me, who actually programs as a hobby (using the super user
friendly MS Visual Studio suite for C#, C++.NET), not being able to
install an OS easily where the HDs are SATA. Now picture Joe and
Sally Average trying to do it.

No wonder Linux has <1% market share.

You didn't get the "these days" reference? Or you chose to ignore it?
Which is it?

Imagine someone installing a recent distro, already properly configured,
such as Ubuntu.

Now imagine DELL selling it.

Or imagine Walmart selling gOs.

I don't think much of your imagination. Nor of your concept of "market
share".

Nor of your comparison of me, the Linonut, who just loves tinkering with
things, even risking breaking them royally and destroying data (and I
have done that), with your average Joe who depends upon the kindness of
others in order to have a working system.

And I'm not even /close/ to being a Linux expert. Not even /close/.

 

[thad05]

And I'm not even /close/ to being a Linux expert. Not even /close/.

Well, I'll go ahead and claim to be a Linux expert (at least I play
one in the consulting world), and even I rarely compile a kernel unless
I'm working on an embedded project. With modern distros and their use
of kernel modules, I've typically been fine running the generic kernel.
I suppose I could shave some boot time by eliminating some of that
unnecessary hardware probing, but why bother... I've got more important
stuff to do.

The truth is Linux is currently better than Windows in regards to
hardware detection and ease of installation. People only think
otherwise because they usually buy their system with Windows already
installed on it.

Thad

 

[Jim Richardson]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:17:32 -0600,

Well, I'll go ahead and claim to be a Linux expert (at least I play
one in the consulting world), and even I rarely compile a kernel unless
I'm working on an embedded project. With modern distros and their use
of kernel modules, I've typically been fine running the generic kernel.
I suppose I could shave some boot time by eliminating some of that
unnecessary hardware probing, but why bother... I've got more important
stuff to do.

we had to compile a kernel at work a few months ago. Wanted drivers in
the kernel that weren't supported at the time. Might as well not have
bothered, as the next kernel version had them, and we didn't do any
installs with the version we made in the interim.

The truth is Linux is currently better than Windows in regards to
hardware detection and ease of installation. People only think
otherwise because they usually buy their system with Windows already
installed on it.

Bingo!

Oh the grief our Windows guy goes through with XP installs compared to
the Linux desktops! oy, I feel sorry for the guy.

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[raylopez99]

Nor of your comparison of me, the Linonut, who just loves tinkering with
things, even risking breaking them royally and destroying data (and I
have done that), with your average Joe who depends upon the kindness of
others in order to have a working system.

And I'm not even /close/ to being a Linux expert. Not even /close/.

So, you love to tinker with OSes rather than use them to do real
work. This is known as having a hobby. I would not quit my day job.

Linux is hobbyware--the thrill is just getting it to work, nothing
else.

RL