Sata 2 Hard drive

[Magic02]

I purchased a 500Gb Samsung Sata 2 hard drive to replace the 200Gb Sata drive in my Hp 7580 Media center.I intend to install a few distros on the new driveThe present hard drive is used for storing files etc but does not contain the operating system which is on another drive.I thought it was only a matter of removing the old drive and installing the new one but the computer does not assign a letter to it.It can be seen in device manager but not when i click manage in Windows.I removed both drives as an experiment and booted up with a Windows 2000 disk installed and when it came to install it said no disk present.I also tried installing Ubuntu but no disk showing either.Any suggestions anybody

[cybertron]

JustLinux may not be the best place to get advice on making Windows see new hard drives, but I'll give you a couple of thoughts anyway.;)

Rather than using a Windows boot disk to see if the drive is detected, check in the BIOS. When you first turn your computer on there should be a message telling you how to get into it ("Press F1 for setup" or the like). Most BIOSes have a section that shows what drives are connected. If it doesn't show up there then either you have a bad drive, or your motherboard for some reason doesn't support it. SATA 2 drives should work with SATA 1 motherboards, but maybe your BIOS doesn't support a drive that large or something. Check HP's site to see if they have an update.

If not, then about all I can tell you is to double-check all the connections to make sure it wasn't a simple cabling mistake (we've all made them:)). Then check with HP as to whether that drive should work with that computer, and if so you might just have gotten a dead drive and will have to take it back to wherever you bought it from.

[saikee]

Is it possible that the mobo supports Sata I and not Sata II?

There is hope if the device manager reports it.

Being a raw disk and not formatted the user should not expect it mountable. It is only correct that Windows did not assign a letter for it. The disk if supported can be formatted by

Right click "My computer", left double click "Manage", then "storage" and then "Disk management".

If a Windows can see it then Ubuntu can see it too. In Ubuntu terminal it should show up by command
sudo fdisk -lThe 500Gb disk should be reported with the correct capacity but without a partition because it is a raw disk.

If you can't get "disk management" to report it in Windows and Ubuntu's "sudo fdisk -l" shows up no 500Gb disk then it is not recognised at a hardware level and your mobo is too old. Some Sata II, like Maxtor, has a jumper setting to reconfigure a Sata II (rate at 300Mb/s speed) to Sata I (rated at 150Mb/s). From memory my Samsung 500Gb Sata II does not appear to have such jumper.

This link (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/244285-14-samsung-500gb-issue) reports the same disk detected sometimes on a mobo supporting only Sata I and it ran at a ridiculously slow speed when operating.

[cybertron]

SATA 2 is supposed to be backwards compatible, although apparently there are some motherboards that don't support it (there's a list on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#SATA_1.5Gb.2Fs_and_SATA_3Gb.2Fs), but it's Wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt).

And I forgot that a drive that's not partitioned or formatted wouldn't get a drive letter in Windows. Oops.:o

[Magic02]

Thanks guys for your input.It is not showing in disk management.When i run Hwinfo32 it reports that my motherboard is an Asustek Computer Inc. Emery 2 and the chipset is Intel 945P (Lakeport-P) + 1CH7DH and that it supports Sata AHC1, Sata Raid0/5/10 and Sata Raids.Sorry for being so slow in replying as i was away most of the day.Thanks again

[cybertron]

Did you ever figure anything out with this? If not I'd suggest checking with Asus's support department to see if it should support that drive. Also we might be able to help more effectively if you tried it under Linux.:)

[Magic02]

On Monday i phoned Samsung and i was speaking to technical support and he told me to fit a jumper on the hard drive and that it would make the disk run on Sata1.I did that and windows seen the disk and i was able to go to disk manage and assign a drive letter and format it.As i write this i am trying to install either Mepis or Ubuntu.I intend to keep about 300GB for backup for Windows and use the other 200GB for Linux.There is a good tutorial for Mepis on YouTube that explains how to partition and install.Thanks for your help and i will let you know how i get on

[cybertron]

Glad to hear it. Good luck with the install.