Unable to see harddrive after booting off LiveCD

[bandoba]

Hello,

I have been using Knoppix for long time now. Normally I use it on my server machine with WinPartition method. Now I am trying to revive one of the old machines that I have. Knoppix works fine if booted off LiveCD. It sees my hard drives as well. But it can't mount any of the partitions. In fact when I do cfdisk or qtparted, it just gives me error saying failed to open device.

The problem disappears if I try cheatcode pci=off. But with this cheatcode, my network card (eth0) disappears too. Other than pci=off, no other cheatcode allows me to access any of the two hard drives I have. Is there any way to resolve this issue? Am I missing something here?

TIA.

Here is exact error message from cfdisk and some more info.

For cfdisk /dev/hda command, it shows error:
unknown partition table type.
Do you want to restart with new partition table?

I have tried answering yes to question above. In that case, it allows me to create new partitions etc but it fails while writing the changes. It just hangs in there. Any idea what could be wrong?

[|enouf|]

Try:
sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda
and
sudo cfdisk

....post back any relevant info

also paste output of;
sudo lspci -vv

and ALSO tell us what your intentions with this box are -- i.e.; wipe HDD, install Knoppix (install Debian of Kanotix orK/Ubuntu instead), dual boot ?, etc

[bandoba]

Thanks for your help. Here is the info requested...

$sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 13.7 GB, 13701316608 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 26548 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Disk /dev/hda doesn't contain a valid partition table


$sudo cfdisk

Unknown partition table type
Do you wish to start with a zero table [y/N] ?

$sudo lspci -vv

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 620 Host (rev 02)
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort
- <MAbort+ >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 64
Region 0: Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64M]
Capabilities: [c0] AGP version 2.0
Status: RQ=32 Iso- ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA+ ITACoh- GART64- HTrans- 64
bit- FW- AGP3- Rate=x1,x2
Command: RQ=1 ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA- AGP- GART64- 64bit- FW- Rate=<n
one>

0000:00:00.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
(prog-if 80 [Master])
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort-
<MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 16
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 14
Region 0: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 1: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 2: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 3: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=16]

0000:00:01.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS85C503/5513 (LPC Br
idge) (rev b1)
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle+ MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort
- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 0

0000:00:01.1 ff00: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] ACPI
Control: I/O- Mem- BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort
- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-

0000:00:01.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller
(rev 11) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort
- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 64 (20000ns max), Cache Line Size: 0x08 (32 bytes)
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 3
Region 0: Memory at e5901000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

0000:00:02.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Virtual PCI-to-PCI bri
dge (AGP) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort-
<MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
I/O behind bridge: 0000d000-0000dfff
Memory behind bridge: e5800000-e58fffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: e5000000-e57fffff
BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR- NoISA- VGA+ MAbort- >Reset- FastB2B-

0000:00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Lite-On Communications Inc LNE100TX (rev 21)
Subsystem: Netgear FA310TX
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort
- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 64
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
Region 0: I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
Region 1: Memory at e5900000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Expansion ROM at e4000000 [disabled] [size=256K]

0000:00:0f.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10
)
Subsystem: C-Media Electronics Inc CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device
Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort
- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 64 (500ns min, 6000ns max)
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 10
Region 0: I/O ports at e400 [size=256]
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot
-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

0000:00:0f.1 Communication controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)
Subsystem: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738
Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort
- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Interrupt: pin B routed to IRQ 3
Region 0: I/O ports at e800 [size=64]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk+ DSI- D1- D2+ AuxCurrent=55mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2+,D3ho
t+,D3cold+)
Status: D3 PME-Enable+ DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 530/620 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter (rev 2a) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS530,620 GUI Accelerator+3 D
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort - <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 64 (500ns min)
Region 0: Memory at e5000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=8M]
Region 1: Memory at e5800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Region 2: I/O ports at d000 [size=128]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 1
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot -,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
Capabilities: [50] AGP version 1.0
Status: RQ=2 Iso- ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA- ITACoh- GART64- HTrans- 64b it- FW- AGP3- Rate=x1,x2
Command: RQ=1 ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA- AGP- GART64- 64bit- FW- Rate=<n one>



I would like to run KNOPPIX on this machine eventually. But the way I want to run it is like WinPartition method except Windows partition. Here is how I would do it...

1. Create a small partition of around 700 MB and copy KNOPPIX ISO file on that partition.
2. Create swap partition.
3. Create additional data partition with ext3 file system for KNOPPIX use.
4. Create a FAT32 partition to share data between KNOPPIX and other OSes.

After partition creation, I normally install GRUB on that machine and ask it to boot off ISO file on first partition - just like what it does in case of WinPartition method.

The main reason to do this - I can easily upgrade version of KNOPPIX later just by repalcing the ISO file on first partition. Also by keeping ISO file on HDD, the speed of booting is much faster than booting off CD because I have got a very slow CD drive on this machine.

Does all this makes sense? Please suggest if there is any better way to do this. And yes, first we need to resolve these HDD issues.

[|enouf|]

Thanks for your help. Here is the info requested...

[info snipped]

I would like to run KNOPPIX on this machine eventually. But the way I want to run it is like WinPartition method except Windows partition. Here is how I would do it...

1. Create a small partition of around 700 MB and copy KNOPPIX ISO file on that partition.
2. Create swap partition.
3. Create additional data partition with ext3 file system for KNOPPIX use.
4. Create a FAT32 partition to share data between KNOPPIX and other OSes.

After partition creation, I normally install GRUB on that machine and ask it to boot off ISO file on first partition - just like what it does in case of WinPartition method.

The main reason to do this - I can easily upgrade version of KNOPPIX later just by repalcing the ISO file on first partition. Also by keeping ISO file on HDD, the speed of booting is much faster than booting off CD because I have got a very slow CD drive on this machine.

Does all this makes sense? Please suggest if there is any better way to do this. And yes, first we need to resolve these HDD issues.
Hi - you're welcome ;) yes - it makes sense (But - I think installing Debian 3.1r1 (Sarge) -or- (K)Ubuntu, Kanotix, MEPIS, SLAX, whatever, etc is a much better option - the installation process will let you create your own partitions /sizes, etc...it can be a little bit tricky on 1st try, but...)

Ok- so we can wipe the HDD ?? and you're sure it's the only HDD ?(or sure it's /dev/hda ?)
If so - then we can Zero out the disk - yes?
Either let Cfdisk do it or (answer Yes);
Boot to Knoppix LiveCD (which version are you using ?)....then at boot: type in knoppix26 1
Once booted to text mode as root (runlevel1)...type in
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 this should zero out the MBR/MPTs - you can now reboot and install whatever you like ( I haven't booted to LiveCD in a while, so I forget exactly if you use ' exit ' or ' init 6 ' or 'ctrl-alt-del' or ' shutdown -r now ' to resart the system)... Note; you shouldn't need to add ' sudo ' in front of the ' dd ' command.

I'm just not that familiar with the WinPartition procedure (though I know about it)

I installed Debian Sarge not too long ago and having a full install has it's advatages (and some headaches ;)) -- but I really like this "Kpackage" thing instead of apt-get or aptitude -- makes for a nice GUI for Installing ANY deb packages , updating, upgrading and sorting.

YMMV

Edit;
Oh ..while the lspci -vv is very informative -- please do this instead (much less output)
sudo lspci -n - post the info HERE and into this websites box http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/index.cgi
It's a Linux Hardware compatability helper site;

[bandoba]

Partitioning is not a problem. I can easily handle it. I tried Ubuntu, Puppy Linux and other stuff and it works fine. But I would really like to know why I am unable to install KNOPPIX when any other distro just works fine. It is kind of challenge for me to find out what is wrong and why KNOPPIX doesn't understand the setup.

About zeroing out the disk - no problem with that. I tried dd and it just hung while writing to the disk. In fact as I mentioned before, I have tried answering yes to cfdisk question of "start with new partition table". But later on it fails while writing new partition table.

The main thing that I don't understand is why it can't read even existing partition table. The existing partition table is valid. It was created when I installed Ubuntu and right Ubuntu is still there. I am trying to replace it with KNOPPIX. But for some reason, KNOPPIX just doesn't see existing stuff on the disk. Any thoughts/comments?

[bandoba]

Edit;
Oh ..while the lspci -vv is very informative -- please do this instead (much less output)
sudo lspci -n - post the info HERE and into this websites box http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/index.cgi
It's a Linux Hardware compatability helper site;



I tried lspci -n. Here is the output...
0000:00:00.0 0600: 1039:0620 (rev 02)
0000:00:00.1 0101: 1039:5513 (rev d0)
0000:00:01.0 0601: 1039:0008 (rev b1)
0000:00:01.1 ff00: 1039:0009
0000:00:01.2 0c03: 1039:7001 (rev 11)
0000:00:02.0 0604: 1039:0001
0000:00:09.0 0200: 11ad:0002 (rev 21)
0000:00:0f.0 0401: 13f6:0111 (rev 10)
0000:00:0f.1 0780: 13f6:0211 (rev 10)
0000:01:00.0 0300: 1039:6306 (rev 2a)


I ran it throught the link you provided. As per the results there, all appears to be OK. May be you can check and see if I missed anything. Thanks.

[bandoba]

One more question: what exactly does pci=off cheatcode do? I am wondering because as soon as I use that, KNOPPIX sees all my hard drives correctly. Can read the partition table. In fact it even uses the swap partition that is already there. But with that cheatcode, it doesn't see my network card anymore.

[|enouf|]

I tried lspci -n. Here is the output...
0000:00:00.0 0600: 1039:0620 (rev 02)
0000:00:00.1 0101: 1039:5513 (rev d0)
0000:00:01.0 0601: 1039:0008 (rev b1)
0000:00:01.1 ff00: 1039:0009
0000:00:01.2 0c03: 1039:7001 (rev 11)
0000:00:02.0 0604: 1039:0001
0000:00:09.0 0200: 11ad:0002 (rev 21)
0000:00:0f.0 0401: 13f6:0111 (rev 10)
0000:00:0f.1 0780: 13f6:0211 (rev 10)
0000:01:00.0 0300: 1039:6306 (rev 2a)


I ran it throught the link you provided. As per the results there, all appears to be OK. May be you can check and see if I missed anything. Thanks.

I am as perplexed as you are atm - the hardware seems all supported as per that url check


One more question: what exactly does pci=off cheatcode do? I am wondering because as soon as I use that, KNOPPIX sees all my hard drives correctly. Can read the partition table. In fact it even uses the swap partition that is already there. But with that cheatcode, it doesn't see my network card anymore.

Not certain - but nopci or pci=off is likely very similar to Failsafe (basically nothing loaded)
Have you booted with Knoppix LiveCD to Knoppix26 1 or even just Knoppix 1
Above is very important when trouble-shooting also to access unmounted drives/file systems (IIRC)
Try using e2fsck (it's like a Check Disk for ext2,3 file systems)
type in info e2fsck for info and options (I'm not good at using that one yet ;))

You are being quite vague about your system setup and HDD info.....
Do you have some funky HDDs ? or external or RAMDrives or somesuch ?
Perhaps HDDs attached to an SCSI or RAID controller? or UltraATA/IDE PCI Card or something ?
Using LVM (Logical Volume Manager) or NFS (Network/ed File System?) drives ?
What Version of Knoppix ?? and which Kernel ?? CD or DVD version ??
What other OSes are installed ?
What File Systems are you using ext2, ext3,
Did you at one time put LILO into the MBR ? or LoadLin ?
>>some silly questions<<
How many HDDs are in the box ??
Is this a Macintosh ??
A Laptop ?

Post *some* of this output;
sudo hdparm -I /dev/hda (that's a Capital letter "I" as in Eye, not an L, not a 1)

and *all* of this one;
sudo dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 | xxd

and *all* of this one;
sudo cat /etc/fstab

and all of this;
sudo mount

BTW - Knoppix is NOT meant to be installed to HDD
Besides AFAIK; you would need to boot to 'knoppix 1' and then run the installer anyway - the installer won't do anything from within a fully booted knoppix (GUI)

[|enouf|]

$sudo lspci -vv
[...]
0000:00:00.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
(prog-if 80 [Master])
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort-
<MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 16
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 14
Region 0: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 1: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 2: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 3: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=16]


not sure if this is anything or not - but that IDE I/O port ignored *may* be an issue;

FWIW -- here's mine for comparison;

0000:00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01) (prog-if 80 [Master])
Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 64
Region 4: I/O ports at 1000 [size=16]

[bandoba]

Not certain - but nopci or pci=off is likely very similar to Failsafe (basically nothing loaded)
Have you booted with Knoppix LiveCD to Knoppix26 1 or even just Knoppix 1


I am booting from live CD. It is version 4.0.2 (20050923). This version by default boots with 2.6 kernel so never used knoppix26 cheatcode. Also instead of knoppix26 1, I used knoppix 2. Hope that won't make a huge difference. But will try with knoppix 1 also.



Above is very important when trouble-shooting also to access unmounted drives/file systems (IIRC)
Try using e2fsck (it's like a Check Disk for ext2,3 file systems)
type in info e2fsck for info and options (I'm not good at using that one yet ;))


Will try this out tomorrow.



You are being quite vague about your system setup and HDD info.....
Do you have some funky HDDs ? or external or RAMDrives or somesuch ?
Perhaps HDDs attached to an SCSI or RAID controller? or UltraATA/IDE PCI Card or something ?
Using LVM (Logical Volume Manager) or NFS (Network/ed File System?) drives ?
What Version of Knoppix ?? and which Kernel ?? CD or DVD version ??
What other OSes are installed ?
What File Systems are you using ext2, ext3,
Did you at one time put LILO into the MBR ? or LoadLin ?


Sorry about not providing all the info.
About the machine and hardware:
- this is an old e-machine desktop with Intel Celeron 333 MHz CPU with 384MB RAM and 2 hard drives.
- hda is 12GB IDE hard disk with 4 partitions (2 of them with ext3, one swap and one FAT32). Right now it contains Ubuntu. When I installed Ubuntu, it did put GRUB on the system. Though I don't think it matters because I am booting off a knoppix live CD (version 4.0.2).
- hdb is 4GB IDE hard disk with 1 FAT32 partition and Windows ME.
- I believe the knoppix Live CD version 4.0.uses kernel version 2.6.
- Both hard drives are fine, they are correctly recognized by BIOS, Windows ME, Ubuntu, Puppu Linux. Both are IDE drives connected to primary IDE on motherboard.
- No external or SCSI or RAID HDDs.
- Not using LVM of NFS.
- As I said above, Ubuntu installation did put GRUB on MBR. So I boot off first hard disk, I see GRUB menu giving me option of booting to Ubuntu or Windows ME on 2nd hard drive.

Hope this explains all. Please let me know if you need more info.



>>some silly questions<<
How many HDDs are in the box ??
Is this a Macintosh ??
A Laptop ?


- There are 2 HDDs - see above for more details.
- This is a Windows ME machine originally but now Ubuntu & WinME dual boot.
- This is a desktop machine, not laptop and not macintosh.



Post *some* of this output;
sudo hdparm -I /dev/hda (that's a Capital letter "I" as in Eye, not an L, not a 1)

and *all* of this one;
sudo dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 | xxd

and *all* of this one;
sudo cat /etc/fstab

and all of this;
sudo mount


I will post the results of these commands in separate post.



BTW - Knoppix is NOT meant to be installed to HDD
Besides AFAIK; you would need to boot to 'knoppix 1' and then run the installer anyway - the installer won't do anything from within a fully booted knoppix (GUI)
[/quote]

As I mentioned earlier, I am far away from installing anything. For now, I just want to see my hard drives with correct partition table. Just like when I see those with pci=off cheatcode. Once I can see existing partition info, I will move ahead to re-partitioning and pesudo install procedure as I explained in 2nd/3rd post.

HTH and thanks for all your help.

[bandoba]

$sudo lspci -vv
[...]
0000:00:00.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
(prog-if 80 [Master])
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step
ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort-
<MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 16
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 14
Region 0: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 1: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 2: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 3: I/O ports at <ignored>
Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=16]


not sure if this is anything or not - but that IDE I/O port ignored *may* be an issue;

FWIW -- here's mine for comparison;

0000:00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01) (prog-if 80 [Master])
Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 64
Region 4: I/O ports at 1000 [size=16]


Thanks for posting your info for comparison. It helped. That itself could be a problem. But I don't know what exactly it means when it says port is ignored.

Other thing I thought of was - I would compare the results with booting off without any cheatcodes when I don't see correct partition table with results shown when booted with cheatcode pci=off, when I see correct partition table info. Will let you know what I find.

[|enouf|]

I am booting from live CD. It is version 4.0.2 (20050923). This version by default boots with 2.6 kernel so never used knoppix26 cheatcode. Also instead of knoppix26 1, I used knoppix 2. Hope that won't make a huge difference. But will try with knoppix 1 also.

Oh....but Yes it most certainly will - runlevel2 is the Normal runlevel for Debian based systems
1 is for recovery. If I meant runlevel2, I would've said knoppix 2
see my quote below ;)


Above is very important when trouble-shooting also to access unmounted drives/file systems (IIRC)



Will try this out tomorrow.

Cool


Sorry about not providing all the info.
About the machine and hardware:
- this is an old e-machine desktop with Intel Celeron 333 MHz CPU with 384MB RAM and 2 hard drives.
- hda is 12GB IDE hard disk with 4 partitions (2 of them with ext3, one swap and one FAT32). Right now it contains Ubuntu. When I installed Ubuntu, it did put GRUB on the system. Though I don't think it matters because I am booting off a knoppix live CD (version 4.0.2).
- hdb is 4GB IDE hard disk with 1 FAT32 partition and Windows ME.
- I believe the knoppix Live CD version 4.0.uses kernel version 2.6.
- Both hard drives are fine, they are correctly recognized by BIOS, Windows ME, Ubuntu, Puppu Linux. Both are IDE drives connected to primary IDE on motherboard.
- No external or SCSI or RAID HDDs.
- Not using LVM of NFS.
- As I said above, Ubuntu installation did put GRUB on MBR. So I boot off first hard disk, I see GRUB menu giving me option of booting to Ubuntu or Windows ME on 2nd hard drive.

Hope this explains all. Please let me know if you need more info.

Very good ;) now we know what we're working with here


>>some silly questions<<



- There are 2 HDDs - see above for more details.
- This is a Windows ME machine originally but now Ubuntu & WinME dual boot.
- This is a desktop machine, not laptop and not macintosh.

got it now...



I will post the results of these commands in separate post.

very nice -- alrighty


As I mentioned earlier, I am far away from installing anything. For now, I just want to see my hard drives with correct partition table. Just like when I see those with pci=off cheatcode. Once I can see existing partition info, I will move ahead to re-partitioning and pesudo install procedure as I explained in 2nd/3rd post.

HTH and thanks for all your help.
your welcome
The dd command output will read the tables (MBR) in hex and text
I suspect you have some funky doubly overwritten MBR/MPT (LILO + GRUB) like I have ;) (but mine works)

You should Revisit the PuppyLinux site too -- I "think" I recall reading it does some funky stuff to the bootloader/s

Oh....here's (some) my dd output for show :p


$ sudo dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 | xxd

0000000: eb48 9001 b601 4c49 4c4f 1605 a08b f043 .H....LILO.....C
0000010: 0000 0000 57b9 e501 1e2d 1b60 0100 8060 ....W....-.`...`
0000020: 297a 4704 b8c0 078e d0bc 0008 fb52 5306 )zG..........RS.
.....
.....
0000170: 00be 937d e82a 00eb fe47 5255 4220 0047 ...}.*...GRUB .G
0000180: 656f 6d00 4861 7264 2044 6973 6b00 5265 eom.Hard Disk.Re
0000190: 6164 0020 4572 726f 7200 bb01 00b4 0ecd ad. Error.......
00001a0: 10ac 3c00 75f4 c300 0000 0000 0000 0000 ..<.u...........

[bandoba]

Here is the output of the following commands you asked me post...


sudo hdparm -I /dev/hda (that's a Capital letter "I" as in Eye, not an L, not a 1)


/dev/hda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Standards:
Supported: 14
Likely used: 14
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 0 17966
heads 0 12354
sectors/track 0 12336
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 1095651669
device size with M = 1024*1024: 534986 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 560973 MBytes (560 GB)
Capabilities:
IORDY(may be)(cannot be disabled)
Queue depth: 1
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 32 Current = ?
Recommended acoustic management value: 0, current value: 3
DMA: not supported
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio5 pio6
Cycle time: no flow control=13102ns IORDY flow control=13889ns
Security:
32min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 384min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.


So as we see above, is KNOPPIX thinking this is 560GB HDD?

sudo dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 | xxd

0000000: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0000010: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0000020: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0000030: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 eb49 908e .............I..
0000040: d0bc 007c 8bf4 5007 501f fbfc bf00 06b9 ...|..P.P.......
0000050: 0001 f2a5 ea1d 0600 00be be07 b304 803c ...............<
0000060: 8074 0e80 3c00 751c 83c6 10fe cb75 efcd .t..<.u......u..
0000070: 188b 148b 4c02 8bee 83c6 0302 ff00 0020 ....L..........
0000080: 0100 0000 0002 80fa 80ca 80ea 547c 0000 ............T|..
0000090: 31c0 8ed8 8ed0 bc00 20fb a040 7c3c ff74 1....... ..@|<.t
00000a0: 0288 c252 be8a 7de8 4401 f6c2 8074 55b4 ...R..}.D....tU.
00000b0: 41bb aa55 cd13 5a52 724a 81fb 55aa 7544 A..U..ZRrJ..U.uD
00000c0: a041 7c84 c075 0583 e101 7438 668b 4c10 .A|..u....t8f.L.
00000d0: be05 7cc6 44ff 0166 8b1e 447c c704 1000 ..|.D..f..D|....
00000e0: c744 0201 0066 895c 08c7 4406 0070 6631 .D...f.\..D..pf1
00000f0: c089 4404 6689 440c b442 cd13 7206 bb00 ..D.f.D..B..r...
0000100: 70e9 8c00 b408 cd13 7319 f6c2 800f 84ee p.......s.......
0000110: 00a0 4a7c 3cff 7408 38c2 7404 88c2 eb83 ..J|<.t.8.t.....
0000120: e98d 00be 057c c644 ff00 6631 c088 f040 .....|.D..f1...@
0000130: 6689 4404 31d2 88ca c1e2 0288 e888 f440 f.D.1..........@
0000140: 8944 0831 c088 d0c0 e802 6689 0466 a144 .D.1......f..f.D
0000150: 7c66 31d2 66f7 3488 540a 6631 d266 f774 |f1.f.4.T.f1.f.t
0000160: 0488 540b 8944 0c3b 4408 7d3c 8a54 0dc0 ..T..D.;D.}<.T..
0000170: e206 8a4c 0afe c108 d18a 6c0c 5a8a 740b ...L......l.Z.t.
0000180: bb00 708e c331 dbb8 0102 cd13 722a 8cc3 ..p..1......r*..
0000190: 8e06 487c 601e b900 018e db31 f631 fffc ..H|`......1.1..
00001a0: f3a5 1f61 ff26 427c be90 7de8 4000 eb0e ...a.&B|..}.@...
00001b0: be95 7de8 3800 eb06 be9f 7de8 3000 bea4 ..}.8.....}.0...
00001c0: 7de8 2a00 ebfe 4752 5542 2000 4765 6f6d }.*...GRUB .Geom
00001d0: 0048 6172 6420 4469 736b 0052 6561 6400 .Hard Disk.Read.
00001e0: 2045 7272 6f72 00bb 0100 b40e cd10 ac3c Error.........<
00001f0: 0075 f4c3 437c 0500 0000 8001 0100 83fe .u..C|..........



sudo cat /etc/fstab


/proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/sys /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
/dev/pts /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/auto/floppy auto user,noauto,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/auto/cdrom auto user,noauto,exec,ro 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda4 /mnt/hda4 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdb /mnt/hdb auto noauto,users,exec 0 0



sudo mount


/dev/root on / type ext2 (rw)
/ramdisk on /ramdisk type tmpfs (rw,size=292864k)
/UNIONFS on /UNIONFS type unionfs (rw,dirs=/ramdisk=rw:/KNOPPIX=ro,delete=whiteout)
/dev/hdc on /cdrom type iso9660 (ro)
/dev/cloop on /KNOPPIX type iso9660 (ro)
/UNIONFS/dev/pts on /UNIONFS/dev/pts type devpts (rw)
/proc/bus/usb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,devmode=0666)
automount(pid1953) on /mnt/auto type autofs (rw,fd=4,pgrp=1953,minproto=2,maxproto=4)
//192.168.2.125/Stuff on /S type smbfs (rw)


As you see, the last entry in mount list is a shared disk coming from other Windows machine.

[|enouf|]

At quick glance and to hazard a guess -- you may be looking at a Networked drive volume, using either NFS, or LVM (560GB ?? wha?? :o)

Also note;
DMA: not supported

this is what you had said /dev/hda really was;

- hda is 12GB IDE hard disk with 4 partitions (2 of them with ext3, one swap and one FAT32).

I'll have to refresh my thoughts later....

That DEFINITELY is not a Standard ATA/IDE device's output;

Note; a typical output;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/dev/hda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
powers-up in standby; SET FEATURES subcmd spins-up.
Model Number: HDS728080PLAT20
Serial Number: <removed>
Firmware Revision: PF2OA21B
Standards:
Supported: 7 6 5 4
Likely used: 7
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 65535
heads 16 1
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 4128705
LBA user addressable sectors: 160836480
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 160836480
device size with M = 1024*1024: 78533 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 82348 MBytes (82 GB)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yours has /no/ Standards and is not a standard Configuration (Networked though Samba?)
This output is while in Runlevel1 ???

[bandoba]

Yes, this is the output for the same hda (12GB with 4 partitions). No network volume through NFS or anything like that. I agree with you that this is nowhere like standard output but that is what I see when I run it at RunLevel 1. So what can we do now?

[|enouf|]

Yes, this is the output for the same hda (12GB with 4 partitions). No network volume through NFS or anything like that. I agree with you that this is nowhere like standard output but that is what I see when I run it at RunLevel 1. So what can we do now?

I'm not sure :(

Ok ...lets go back to the beginning....I'mt trying to understand what problem you're having -- Repartitioning ??

All your partitions ARE Mounted according to 'mount' -- and then some

Try the umount command to unmount the Network
see 'info mount' or 'man mount'
(note; most commands can use the option "--help" for options - and most 'info' and 'man' pages can be accessed from anywhere like a terminal, and at any runlevel -- and info coreutils <command> will yield very detailed info about core utilities commands like 'dd' and many others -- just note in a Browser like Konquerer, you need to do man:/commandname in the Address/Location Bar)

perhaps like this sudo umount //192.168.2.125
or even sudo umount /automount

-- heck physically pull out the Etherrnet Cable or physically Detach the USB device/s (though I have the "devpts" (device ports?) and "usbfs" (USB file system) entries on mine, even though no USB devices are attached - my networking cables are all Ethernet too)

If after you boot Knoppix normally and open Kmenu >> (somewhere under) "Settings" or "System" or "Utilities" look for Control Center and / or Info Center
You can find out mucho info (even "Samba Status" under Info Center)....

Can try CTRL-ALT-F1 to drop to root, -- replace F1 with F7(or F5) to return to normal desktop -- but while there then try Kill 1953 which is automont's PID#...though I'm not sure that's the Networked drive

I still haven't ruled out LVM -- have you ?
Did you create partitions using LVM ?

Have you looked into the Puppy documentation ??

Curious what your relevant /boot/grub/menu.lst says -or- /etc/boot/grub.conf (?) which is used for RedHat/Fedora distros (though I'm reaching now) -- read the Puppy ;)

[bandoba]

Let's start over again. Just totally forget about the the share (//192.168.2.125/Stuff) shown in mount output. I have specifically mounted that remote share on a directory /S (after creating it) because with RunLevel 1, I don't have any GUI interface where in I can post the info on web. So I was just using the share to save output of commands you asked me to issue. Hope this clears the confusion about any network drive you think I might have.

Also note that mount output *neither* shows partitions for hda *nor* any partitions for hdb.

Main problem here is - knoppix just not able to read *valid* partition table from hda or hdb. As I told you, I know for sure that the partition table is valid because I can boot Ubuntu or Windows ME from those same partitions. Even then, why knoppix can't see it? Also what are those odd disk size related info like 560GB? From all this discussion, I have a feeling that somewhere in the process of booting, the info either gets corrupted or somehow it is simply unreadable. What do you think?

[bandoba]

All your partitions ARE Mounted according to 'mount' -- and then some


Nope, in fact *none* of the partitions from hda or hdb are mounted - check the output.



perhaps like this sudo umount //192.168.2.125
or even sudo umount /automount


This is simply not required since, I have specifically mounted this remote share myself and it is NOT any of the partitions on local hard drives.



-- heck physically pull out the Etherrnet Cable or physically Detach the USB device/s (though I have the "devpts" (device ports?) and "usbfs" (USB file system) entries on mine, even though no USB devices are
attached - my networking cables are all Ethernet too)


I can do this but the problem is with mounting or seeing local disk partitions and not all related to any network share.



I still haven't ruled out LVM -- have you ?
Did you create partitions using LVM ?


We can check if this is case. Though, I am more than 100% sure that I created basic partitions. May be if I post partition table info by using cheatcode pci=off, you will actually see it.



Have you looked into the Puppy documentation ??

Curious what your relevant /boot/grub/menu.lst says -or- /etc/boot/grub.conf (?) which is used for RedHat/Fedora distros (though I'm reaching now) -- read the Puppy ;)


I read Puppy documentation and let me tell you that the problem exists even before trying Puppy. I am damn sure it has nothing to do with Puppy that I tried.

HTH.

[|enouf|]

Nope, in fact *none* of the partitions from hda or hdb are mounted - check the output.
HTH.

you're right ! I was confusing yours and my /etc/fstab with 'mount' results

Notice this ??


......
/dev/fd0 /mnt/auto/floppy auto user,noauto,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/auto/cdrom auto user,noauto,exec,ro 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda4 /mnt/hda4 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdb /mnt/hdb auto noauto,users,exec 0 0

You have auto noauto... for EACH entry above -- that seems like a Confilct ;)
Oh......so hmmmm -- it seems your 1st 'auto' is referring to an 'automount fs' type(?), and yet, I know the 'noauto' entry tells it NOT to mount it at boot -- perhaps just remove the "noauto" lines -- try some diff combos of above.
(note; I haven't booted to Live CD in quite a while, so I haven't looked at the actual results, but this sure seems odd, but may have to do with the way cloop and unionfs work -- do you need me to ?)

Also note -- I have these entries on a dual boot win98 + Debian 3.1r1 HDD install;
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win98 vfat noauto,user,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/win98 vfat noauto,user,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hda6 /mnt/win98 vfat noauto,user,umask=000 0 0


ok with the puppy - but LVM works by adding "Volumes" together to be seen as 1 large HDD (JBOD in RAID terms)

Edit....
Note ...LVM seems to be of "Type 8E" as listed in cfdisk (or ID) of 0x08E
# sudo fdisk -l
will give you the partition IDs and much more -- I see you've tried at my request 'sudo fdsik -l /dev/hda' much earlier in this thread -- hmmm -- (try the pci=off, or failsafe, and try runlevel1 using fdisk) you need to see the partitionIDs, but you have no valid table ...you've screwed the pooch somewhere ;)

You may need to overwrite the partition table using win98's FDISK /mbr and then Reinstall GRUB using grub-install...yet that will most certainly break your 530GB disk :P
I know I didn't like all those Zeros in the very beginning of your MBR (as listed from the 'dd' command output)

[|enouf|]

ALSO ...

Note that 'pci=off' or 'nopci' likely helps because of the new way UDEV or is it HOTPLUG sees devices -- IIRC, and I'm only repeating what I heard in a thread a few days ago -- but udev which is NEW (old was devfs) -- works exactly the OPPOSITE way than does devfs and has broken many systems -- I'll try to dig up the Usenet thread I'm referring to..

ahhh.....here it is ;)

http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.user/browse_frm/thread/c8b2bded7dfe5c4f?scoring=d&q=insubject%3Audev&hl=en


Perhaps because of this udev stuff -- maybe even 'acpi=off' or 'apic=off' (each by itself) might also accomplish what 'pci=off' does....not that you'd want to disable either - but track down the way this newer udev stuff works

Here's some things to look at;
$ dmesg | grep -i udev (thanks underscore ;))
doesn't not list anything for me (but I have older hardware and an older 2.6.8 kernel) -- but when substituting 'hotplug' i get hits - wonder what yours says
dmesg lists some/most bootup messages - the command above will pluck out the lines with your relevant terms (e.g., 'udev' in bolded example above)

[|enouf|]

ALSO ...

Note that 'pci=off' or 'nopci' likely helps because of the new way UDEV or is it HOTPLUG sees devices -- IIRC, and I'm only repeating what I heard in a thread a few days ago -- but udev which is NEW (old was devfs) -- works exactly the OPPOSITE way than does devfs and has broken many systems -- I'll try to dig up the Usenet thread I'm referring to..

ahhh.....here it is ;)

http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.user/browse_frm/thread/c8b2bded7dfe5c4f?scoring=d&q=insubject%3Audev&hl=en

I'm going to reread it now too....

Perhaps because of this udev stuff -- maybe even 'acpi=off' or 'apic=off' (each by itself) might also accomplish what 'pci=off' does....not that you'd want to disable either - but track down the way this newer udev stuff works

Here's some things to look at;
$ dmesg | grep -i udev (thanks underscore ;))
doesn't not list anything for me (but I have older hardware and an older 2.6.8 kernel) -- but when substituting 'hotplug' i get hits - wonder what yours says
dmesg lists some/most bootup messages - the command above will pluck out the lines with your relevant terms (e.g., 'udev' in bolded example above)

[ICPUG]

Bandoba,

I did a Google search for - "pci=off" linux - and found that your problem is not uncommon. It seems to be a regular problem with users trying to install various versions of Linux, for example! It seems to be a hardware related thing and the solution seems to be to find the right combination of cheatcodes to avoid having to use pci=off. pci=off actually instructs Knoppix not to detect pci devices and I guess your network card is a pci device - which is why it will not work when you have pci=off.

There is an alternative Knoppix cheatcode, pci=bios, which may help in some cases. I have also seen reference to pci=biosirq in cases where there is an interrupt conflict. However, as this is not mentioned on the Knoppix cheat code list, I am not sure of its validity.

What is not obvious is that parameters other than Knoppix cheat codes can be added to the kernel line, because the Linux kernel can accept parameters irrespective of whether it is Knoppix or something else. I think the nomce parameter is a Linux kernel parameter, rather than a Knoppix specific one. I say this because I found a whole web page on the pci parameter. It may be worth trying out some of the possibilities mentioned. You can find this page at:
http://www.bigwebmaster.com/General/Howtos/BootPrompt-HOWTO-4.html

I am not into the mysteries of hardware, but I hope the above mentioned possibilities may lead to a solution to your problem.

ICPUG