No hard disks were found for the installation

[pandwr4]

Hi! I have a similar problem.

I have new computer,
Intel core 2 quad cpu
q9300 @2.50GHz, 2.00GB RAM

hd: WD2500AAJS-62B4A0
motherboard: gigabyte s series GA-EP31-DS3L

the hard disc has two partitions, one is 156gb ntfs, currently with windows xp prof sp2, and I am trying to install linux to the second partition, also currently ntfs.

I am not a total newbie (i used fedora 10 last semester and ubuntu the semester before that). I have tried installing ubuntu9.04, fedora 10, fedora 11, and opensuse11.1 to this computer, and every time the installation probes for hard disks it comes up with zip, unless I have my external disks connected. Otherwise

"No hard disks were found for the installation. Please check your hardware!"

with OK button.


I also tried with gparted to see if I could find the hard disk, and still had no luck. I googled my problem and found others with similar problem but no satisfactory solution.

does anybody have any idea what could be wrong and how to fix it??

[D-cat]

I have definitely been in the run for some pretty useless information.

I'm going to guess that there is something about the SATA controller that the current Linux install kernel can't handle yet. If you boot one of the live CD's, open a terminal in SuperUser mode, then type lspci -nnk , I might be able to verify that. If you boot from a LiveCD, also just double check that you still can't open the Windows drives from it.

Unfortunately, if that's the case, I can't offer much help. There might be a kernel module available if you can get it from your vendor (which is all the help either the manual or the website would offer)

Due to different Linux support condition provided by chipset vendors, please download Linux driver from chipset vendors' website or 3rd party website.

but you'd still end up with a sort of chicken and egg scenario when it came to installing it.

If this be the case, options then become:

• Install to an external drive (at least first as staging area to build kernel module, assuming you find source for it).
• Install an internal PATA IDE drive exclusively for Linux.
• Wait for the next distro release and hope they solved the issue.

[pandwr4]

[liveuser@localhost ~]$ lspci -nnk
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Controller [8086:29c0] (rev 10)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:5000]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express PCI Express Root Port [8086:29c1] (rev 10)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller [8086:27d8] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:a002]
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:27d0] (rev 01)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 [8086:27d6] (rev 01)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:27c8] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:5004]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:27c9] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:5004]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:27ca] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:5004]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.3 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:27cb] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:5004]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:27cc] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:5006]
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:27b8] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:5001]
Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt, intel-rng
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller [8086:27c0] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:b002]
Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:27da] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology GA-8I945PG-RH Mainboard [1458:5001]
Kernel driver in use: i801_smbus
Kernel modules: i2c-i801
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation GeForce 9800 GTX [10de:0612] (rev a2)
Subsystem: nVidia Corporation Device [10de:0577]
Kernel modules: nouveau
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology GA-EP45-DS5 Motherboard [1458:e000]
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169
[liveuser@localhost ~]$





[liveuser@localhost ~]$ cd /media
[liveuser@localhost media]$ ls
Fedora-11-i686-L My Passport

I cannot find my hard drive... :S


also I noticed the gigabyte post when I was trying to solve the problem, but I felt pretty dumb when I looked for the Linux driver and couldn't find anything. I think I haven't understood the problem in the first place... :S

btw thanks for the quick reply!

[D-cat]

Something that has not been mounted yet will not show up in /media. In order to see if the drives are accessible, you'd check the output of sudo fdisk -l (FDISK -L in lower case; "sudo" may or may not be necessary depending on distro).

That being said, I have a similar chipset as yours and am immediately noticing a discrepancy:

yours:

...
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ...

mine:

...
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev c2)
        Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1f.0 ...

I don't know if the fact that you don't have the shpchp kernel module available makes a difference or not here. I do note that you do have the SATA module ata_piix loaded, so it doesn't appear to be that in and of itself.

00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller [8086:27c0] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device [1458:b002]
Kernel driver in use: ata_piix

I will note that while SATA does work on my machine, I do boot an updated kernel from a PATA drive (this is just how the machine was built, the SATA drive was actually a very recent addition).

Please show me the fdisk -l output just so I can make sure I don't misstep.

[pandwr4]

[root@localhost liveuser]# fdisk -l 

Disk /dev/dm-0: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 391 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 391 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

note that I partitioned remaining space on disk through windows disk manager :/

[D-cat]

My first (and probably wrong) guess is Linux is detecting a RAID setup - incorrectly.

Otherwise, are these drives used in a LVM setup? From what I gather LVM is the other thing that causes these /dev/dm* devices to show up.

This problem has just been brought beyond my level of experience. Sorry, I hope someone who knows more what they're doing can drop in here.

[pandwr4]

I hope someone who knows more what they're doing can drop in here.

soon... I spend more time fooling around looking for a solution than doing what I am supposed to be doing. Studying.


Thanks for all your help, and time anyway!!!