1

I recently got a refurbished desktop (32 bit) with Windows 7 home preloaded.

Ubuntu 8.10 will install on it but Ubuntu 12.04 won't as it doesn't recognize a hard drive.

As a test I reloaded with XP Pro SP3, but Ubuntu 12.04 still won't find a hard drive.

Is there a fix?

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x75bfd462

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        9327    74919096   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            9328        9729     3229065    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            9328        9729     3229033+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
8
  • @Jos - could be Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (but the OP probably does mean Windowz). Anyway, Sphinx, what is the result of booting from the Live CD and running sudo fdisk -l in terminal?
    – Wilf
    Feb 17, 2015 at 20:30
  • I mean Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition. It's an older version and it loads. The next newer versions I have are 10.04, 11.1, ans 12.04.3 which won't get through the partitioning phase.
    – Sphinx
    Feb 17, 2015 at 20:33
  • @Wilf, give me a few minutes, it's been 4 years since I played with Ubuntu so I'm rusty, and watching my 15 month old run amok (trying to devour the kat). I'll try first in U 8.10
    – Sphinx
    Feb 17, 2015 at 20:42
  • Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x75bfd462 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 9327 74919096 83 Linux /dev/sda2 9328 9729 3229065 5 Extended /dev/sda5 9328 9729 3229033+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris sphinx@sphinx-desktop:~$
    – Sphinx
    Feb 17, 2015 at 20:50
  • 1
    @Sphinx can you edit your question and add in that data? And are you certain it is 32-bit?
    – muru
    Feb 17, 2015 at 20:51

1 Answer 1

0

Wild guess, have you tried to remake the label on the disk ( right click new master boot record) and then partitioned on a 4k alignment? I recall that parted was doing something weird back then and if it didn't hit the alignment it would break. It might also be the case that on such old drives, one of the important sections of the disk where the partition holds metadata might have a bad sector. One way of checking would be to use ctrl+alt+F2, after you initiate the format, drop into console and type dmesg and see if it complains of bad sectors. If it does, then the disk is bad. Look for something similar to:

   [Sun Jul 21 13:36:32 2013] ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x1 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
   [Sun Jul 21 13:36:32 2013] ata4.00: irq_stat 0x40000008 
   [Sun Jul 21 13:36:32 2013] ata4.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED 
   [Sun Jul 21 13:36:32 2013] ata4.00: cmd 60/20:00:2c:eb:7e/00:00:08:00:00/40 tag 0 ncq 16384 in 
   [Sun Jul 21 13:36:32 2013] res 41/40:00:2f:eb:7e/00:00:08:00:00/40 Emask 0x409 (media error) <F> 
   [Sun Jul 21 13:36:32 2013] ata4.00: status: { DRDY ERR } 
   [Sun Jul 21 13:36:32 2013] ata4.00: error: { UNC } 
6
  • I have not tried that. What utility would I use to do that? Been a while since my mainframe and DOS days. I have a variety of Ubuntu flavors as well as an XPE admin disk to use.
    – Sphinx
    Feb 17, 2015 at 21:51
  • Well, first i say you need to check the disk, for that you could easly try in recovery mode: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX , where X is the disk letter This will also erase the previous partitioning scheme. Now linux has the concept of screens, you start on "screen ALT+F1 for console, or ALT+F7 for graphical mode) so you leave things working there and type ALT+F2 to go to a new screen, there you can periodically type dmesg, and see if you have bad blocks. At one point the disk should be all zeroed out. Reboot, and go to normal install if no bad blocks. The installer will ask for new MBR.
    – user283885
    Feb 17, 2015 at 22:02
  • I probably sound stupid, but how do I assign the MBR? Currently running a file system check.
    – Sphinx
    Feb 17, 2015 at 22:07
  • If you use the installer, then the installer will set one for you, and you just have to be sure you don't start the first partition from 1 or zero, start it from 1049kB .
    – user283885
    Feb 17, 2015 at 22:33
  • Another thing I remembered, when you reboot, do visit BIOS and make sure that 1. if the disk is IDE, then you are in LBA32 mode (not CHS, not LBA16). If you only have LBA then set it to this, and 32bit addressing mode. 2. if the disk is sata, then AHCI might not work on an older machine with such an old distro, try it in IDE compatibility mode with the mentioned LBA.
    – user283885
    Feb 17, 2015 at 22:40

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .