Hello all,

Was hoping someone could help with a problem I recently encountered. I had been running RedHat 7.2 on a dual-processor workstation quite happily. Because RedHat discontinued support for the older versions, I decided to upgrade to RedHat Enterprise Linux ES (kernal 2.4.21-4.ELsmp). I took that opportunity to get a new hard drive for hda, where I keep the system. The install went okay (there are some network issues that I may ask about later), but I am having trouble mounting one of my existing drives, which was working just fine under the last system.

With the new system and drive in place, I have three 250 Gb drives and a DVD. The two drives on the first IDE channel mount just fine. I can also mount CDs/DVDs (slave on the second IDE channel). However, the hard drive that is on hdc will not mount. When I run 'fdisk -l' it doesn't see the drive, and issuing a mount command gives the following error:

mount: /dev/hdc1: can't read superblock

This puzzles me, because the drive worked just fine under the old 7.2 release. I changed the drive configuration around and confirmed that the problem was not with the drive itself. For some reason, whatever hard drive is on the hdc channel cannot be seen. Cables and jumpers are set correctly. This seems like it should be a pretty basic issue, but I can't seem to find any threads that have dealt with it. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Mike

"This seems like it should be a pretty basic issue, but I can't seem to find any threads that have dealt with it. Any ideas?"

Does the DVD need a 40 wire cable and the hard drive need an 80 wire cable?

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

Have you checked your bios settings ? Maybe secondary master is disabled there. Did you use hdc in your previous configuration ?

phaedros had a problem where he installed an additional disk and Linux would not recognize it. he eventually installed a new kernel which solved the problem.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ighlight=cable

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

Thanks for the suggeestions. First, both the DVD and hard drive use the same cables. Second, the Secondary master is turned on in the BIOS. In fact, the BIOS recognizes all three of the 250GB drives and the DVD in their proper places. In the previous (version 7.2) configuration I had it set up exactly the same way - disk with OS on hda, 250 GB drive on hdb, 250 GB drive on hdc, and DVD on hdd. The only change I made was to put a new drive into hda and install the new OS on that drive. And suddenly I can't mount that drive, or even see it with commands like 'fdisk -l', even though the BIOS recognizes the drive.

As far as the kernal goes, I looked at the threads from phaedros and there are many similarities. I even get the 'modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module ide-disk' warning on boot. But I have the exact same drive in hdb (capacity, speed, manufacuter - the drives are identical). So why would it only be a problem for the drive in hdc?

"So why would it only be a problem for the drive in hdc?"

I don't know. I think that phaedros solved the problem without ever proving a logical cause and effect relationship between the problem and the solution.

---------------
Steve Stites

Sounds like it is not seeing the drive.
What is the output from
dmesg;
cat /proc/ide/hda/model;
cat /proc/ide/hdb/model;
cat /proc/ide/hdc/model;
cat /proc/ide/hdd/model;
lsmod;
lspci -v;

Here are the outputs from the suggested commands:

# cat /proc/ide/hda/model
Maxtor 6Y250P0

# cat /proc/ide/hdb/model
WDC WD2500JB-00FUA0

# cat /proc/ide/hdc/model
WDC WD2500JB-00FUA0

# cat /proc/ide/hdd/model
Hewlett-Packard DVD Writer 200

# lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
ipt_REJECT 4632 1 (autoclean)
ipt_state 1080 3 (autoclean)
ip_conntrack 29928 1 (autoclean) [ipt_state]
iptable_filter 2444 1 (autoclean)
ip_tables 16544 3 [ipt_REJECT ipt_state iptable_filter]
nls_iso8859-1 3516 0 (autoclean)
nls_cp437 5148 0 (autoclean)
vfat 13196 0 (autoclean)
fat 40216 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
i810_audio 28936 0 (autoclean)
ac97_codec 16104 0 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
soundcore 7044 2 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
parport_pc 19204 1 (autoclean)
lp 9252 0 (autoclean)
parport 39072 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
autofs 13780 0 (autoclean) (unused)
3c59x 31664 1
floppy 59056 0 (autoclean)
microcode 5248 0 (autoclean)
ide-scsi 12368 0
scsi_mod 117032 1 [ide-scsi]
ide-cd 35776 0
cdrom 34176 0 [ide-cd]
keybdev 2976 0 (unused)
mousedev 5688 1
hid 22436 0 (unused)
input 6208 0 [keybdev mousedev hid]
usb-uhci 27532 0 (unused)
usbcore 83168 1 [hid usb-uhci]
ext3 95784 5
jbd 56856 5 [ext3]

# lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82860 860 (Wombat) Chipset Host Bridge (MCH) (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00d8
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82850 850 (Tehama) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 64
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=64
Memory behind bridge: fc000000-fdffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: f0000000-f7ffffff

00:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82860 860 (Wombat) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 64
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0
Memory behind bridge: fe300000-fe5fffff

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB/EB PCI Bridge (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=64
I/O behind bridge: 0000e000-0000efff
Memory behind bridge: fe100000-fe2fffff

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 04)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801BA IDE U100 (rev 04) (prog-if 80 [Master])
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00d8
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
I/O ports at ffa0 [size=16]

00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #1) (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00d8
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
I/O ports at ff80 [size=32]

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM SMBus (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00d8
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 17
I/O ports at dcd0 [size=16]

00:1f.4 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM USB (Hub #2) (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00d8
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23
I/O ports at ff60 [size=32]

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio (rev 04)
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00d8
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
I/O ports at dc40 [size=64]

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11GL [Quadro2 MXR/EX] (rev b2) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0070
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
Memory at fc000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Expansion ROM at c1000000 [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0

02:1f.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82806AA PCI64 Hub PCI Bridge (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=02, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=64
Memory behind bridge: fe400000-fe5fffff

03:00.0 PIC: Intel Corp. 82806AA PCI64 Hub Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (rev 01) (prog-if 20 [IO(X)-APIC])
Subsystem: Intel Corp. 82806AA PCI64 Hub APIC
Flags: fast devsel
Memory at fe4ff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=4K]

04:0b.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00d8
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 23
I/O ports at ec80 [size=128]
Memory at fe1ffc00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
Expansion ROM at fe200000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

04:0c.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB12LV26 IEEE-1394 Controller (Link) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00d8
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
Memory at fe1ff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
Memory at fe1f8000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 1

Sorry to bother everyone with this thread. I just tried something I should have done a while ago. I switched jumpers so that the DVD was the master (hdc) and the hard drive was the slave (hdd). It mounts just fine now. For whatever reason, it seems that hdc was just a bad channel for the hard drive. Perhaps this was the same problem that phaedros had? Anyway, it's all working now. Thank you all for your suggestions.

I've read that some DVD drives always need to be master if there's another device on the same cable. That may have been the problem