raylopez99

On Nov 24, 8:56 am, Rex Ballard <rex.ball...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> 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 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.
>
> 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)

>
> > > 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.
>
> 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.

>
> > 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).
>
> 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.


>
> > > 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.
>
> 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.

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.
>
> > > 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.
>
> 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.


Later, thanks for the tips,
RL