How do I Install a new HD?

[marc1uk]

I've currently got Ubuntu 9.04 installed on a 2GB IDE drive, with read/write access to a 80GB ntfs SATA drive. I'd like to install another 163.9GB IDE drive, with 2 ntfs partitions on it, but as soon as I plug the drive in Ubuntu crashes during boot (after the scrolling loading bar), giving me a looping string of I/O buffer errors.

Any ideas on what I'd need to do to install the new drive?

Thanks in advance

[MikeTbob]

Hello and Welcome,
If you can, boot up from the Ubuntu LiveCD and then issue this command, after you have all the drives plugged in of course.

sudo fdisk -l

That's a lowercase L
Might as well post a copy of your fstab file too

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

[marc1uk]

Unfortunately, I can't boot from the LiveCD either, with all drives connected. I'm presented with the same error messages.
I do have a SLAX liveCD, which gave me the fdisk results:

Disk /dev/hda: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1        3438    27615703+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2   *        3439       19928   132455925    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5            3439       19928   132455893+   7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdb: 4325 MB, 4325529600 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 525 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *           1         496     3984088+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb2             497         525      232942+   5  Extended
/dev/hdb5             497         525      232911   82  Linux swap

Disk /dev/hdc: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdc1   *           1       10010    80405293+   7  HPFS/NTFS

And the fstab results:

tmpfs            /                tmpfs       defaults         0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      vfat,msdos  noauto,users,suid,dev,exec 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ntfs auto,users,suid,dev,exec 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5 ntfs auto,users,suid,dev,exec 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1 ext2 auto,users,suid,dev,exec 0 0
/dev/hdb5 swap swap swap 0 0
/dev/hdc1 /mnt/hdc1 ntfs auto,users,suid,dev,exec 0 0
/dev/hdd /mnt/hdd_cdrom iso9660 noauto,users,exec 0 0

Thanks for the help!

[MikeTbob]

Unfortunately, I can't boot from the LiveCD either, with all drives connected. I'm presented with the same error messages.

You might have some kind of problem on the disk, have you tried checking the disk for errors?

[marc1uk]

You might have some kind of problem on the disk, have you tried checking the disk for errors?

The system's a dualboot, and the disk works fine if i boot into windows, all files intact. So i'm pretty sure the disk itself isn't the problem.

[MikeTbob]

Is that the SLAX fstab or the Ubuntu fstab? Is the new drive hdc? You said it has two partitions but I only see one and free space on hdc. If it is hdc then the line you need to add to /etc/fstab would be:

/dev/hdc1 /mount/point ntfs auto,users,suid,dev,exec 0 0

You need to change the above "/mount/point/" to an actual mount point that you have created. I think Ubuntu uses /dev/sda instead of /dev/hda. And I'm kinda thinking it isn't going to work yet, until we can figure out why it crashes Ubuntu on boot.

[marc1uk]

Is that the SLAX fstab or the Ubuntu fstab? Is the new drive hdc? You said it has two partitions but I only see one and free space on hdc. If it is hdc then the line you need to add to /etc/fstab would be:

/dev/hdc1 /mount/point ntfs auto,users,suid,dev,exec 0 0

You need to change the above "/mount/point/" to an actual mount point that you have created. I think Ubuntu uses /dev/sda instead of /dev/hda. And I'm kinda thinking it isn't going to work yet, until we can figure out why it crashes Ubuntu on boot.

It's progress!
Both the above fdisk -l and /etc/fstab results are from the SLAX liveCD.
hda is the 150GB IDE drive that won't work in Ubuntu. The two partitions are 1 and 5.
hdb is the Ubuntu drive, and appears as sda in Ubuntu.
hdc is the SATA drive, which appears as sdb in Ubuntu.

the fdisk from Ubuntu is correspondingly:

Disk /dev/sda: 4325 MB, 4325529600 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 525 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000001

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         496     3984088+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2             497         525      232942+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5             497         525      232911   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xef18ef18

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1       10010    80405293+   7  HPFS/NTFS

and the fstab;

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
#  -- This file has been automaticly generated by ntfs-config -- 
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=fca91405-152c-48c8-ada1-711d07bb7663 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=9f8494e8-89f2-4fcf-b47c-d0a27e73d838 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/windows ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_GB.UTF-8 0 0

Extending the pattern then, i need to add to the ubuntu fstab sd*, where * is the letter before a. :P Just to make things awkward. Perhaps the reassignment of drive letters/numbers is the cause of the problem? Although that doesn't explain the LiveCD troubles...

[MikeTbob]

Extending the pattern then, i need to add to the ubuntu fstab sd*, where * is the letter before a. :P Just to make things awkward. Perhaps the reassignment of drive letters/numbers is the cause of the problem? Although that doesn't explain the LiveCD troubles...

Bingo!
The new drive is assigned as /dev/sda1, which should be ubuntu / partition. You might need to rearrange your ribbon cables and/or the jumper settings on the drive to change this behavior.

[marc1uk]

Bingo!
The new drive is assigned as /dev/sda1, which should be ubuntu / partition. You might need to rearrange your ribbon cables and/or the jumper settings on the drive to change this behavior.

I see! Ok, comparing the two, all the letters get bumped up a notch - so sda -> sdb, sdb -> sdc when i add the new drive in. H'mm... then to fix this, I need to keep the linux drive the same? ... I'm wondering is it possible to do this by changing the letters? I'm not sure how this ties in with the 'primary master/secondary master, primary slave/secondary slave' thing.

I'll have a fiddle, and post back in 5.
Thanks for the help!

[marc1uk]

Okay, back!
Well, I've managed to swap the new IDE and Linux drives:
the linux position is now Primary Master (was primary slave)
the 160GB IDE is now primary slave (there was no primary master before)
and the SATA and DVD-RW drives are unchanged as secondary master and slave.

Unfortunately, playing about with the boot order, windows will boot, some of them give me freezes at 'verifying DMI pool data', but GRUB... crashes. Gets past 1.5, but then says
GRUB LOADING:
ERROR 16