I decided to install Linux Mint on my trusty "old" Fujitsu Siemens V5535 laptop (it's about 2 yrs old). I bought a new 2.5" 250GB SATA drive to replace the old 80GB (Windows) drive, and set off on the install.
However, I got all sorts of disk errors, so (assuming the disk to be faulty) I got another (different brand) 250GB SATA drive and started again - same results. I'm also seeing issues at the POST stage (eg sometimes the BIOS doesn't report a disk being present, sometimes there's no drive to boot from, etc).
Is it reasonable to conclude that the problem is that the laptop doesn't like the new disks? If so, how would I find out what the maximum disk is that the laptop will support? I can't seem to find much from a Google search. I did find a BIOS update and installed that but it changed nothing.
On 14/04/11 17:37, Mark Rogers wrote:
I decided to install Linux Mint on my trusty "old" Fujitsu Siemens V5535 laptop (it's about 2 yrs old). I bought a new 2.5" 250GB SATA drive to replace the old 80GB (Windows) drive, and set off on the install.
However, I got all sorts of disk errors, so (assuming the disk to be faulty) I got another (different brand) 250GB SATA drive and started again - same results. I'm also seeing issues at the POST stage (eg sometimes the BIOS doesn't report a disk being present, sometimes there's no drive to boot from, etc).
Assuming you have eliminated the obvious problems with poor drive connections and the machine is stable with the original drive then I am not sure what the problem would be. Does the machine have a "dongle" between the SATA connector and the drivebay ? If so check this is seating well at both ends and if available wash it out in a bit of isopop/switch cleaner (not WD-40)
There was the whole SATA vs SATA2 thing but your machine is too new to be suffering from that I would have thought and also too new to suffer any of the BIOS limitations on larger drives. Even then these would I suspect result in a permanent problem rather than an intermittent one.
It does really look like an intermittent hardware issue or something where the disc isn't spinning up quick enough at power on/out of disc suspend.
Is there any pattern to the POST issue, does it only ever happen from a cold boot rather than a reboot etc ?
If you still think it is a drive capacity issue try something < 137GB to avoid the requirement of 48 bit LBA but as far as I can remember those wouldn't prevent the BIOS from detecting the presence of a drive during POST and I can't remember ever seeing a SATA chipset that wasn't capable of 48bit LBA
On 14/04/11 23:51, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Assuming you have eliminated the obvious problems with poor drive connections and the machine is stable with the original drive then I am not sure what the problem would be.
The machine was stable with the original drive (well as stable as a Windows PC can be :-) but I haven't put it back to test again, in case I have damaged something in my upgrade attempts - I don't want to lose what's on that disk.
I now have a second hand 80GB HDD to play with so I'll see where that gets me.
Does the machine have a "dongle" between the SATA connector and the drivebay ?
No, it connects directly, as far as I can tell.
The caddy it fits into had one screw into the old HDD that was far too tight - even with a decent screwdriver it wouldn't come out without chewing up the screw and in the end I had to twist the caddy off leaving one screw in place in the old drive. However I can't see anything in the caddy that would cause me a problem.
Is there any pattern to the POST issue, does it only ever happen from a cold boot rather than a reboot etc ?
Not really a pattern as such, not least one that I'd be confident describing as I haven't tested enough times to rule out coincidences. But it seems fine from a cold restart (in terms of the BIOS seeing the drive and allowing me to boot from it), and I'd say about 50% of reboots (usually caused by something in the O/S complaining about disk errors) result in the BIOS not seeing the drive, for it to reappear on a subsequent reboot.
If you still think it is a drive capacity issue try something < 137GB to avoid the requirement of 48 bit LBA but as far as I can remember those wouldn't prevent the BIOS from detecting the presence of a drive during POST and I can't remember ever seeing a SATA chipset that wasn't capable of 48bit LBA
I'll see if the 80GB disk works. Is there any likelihood of any BIOS parameters helping? I don't recall the options, but if there's something to look for I'll have another go.
Coincidentally, a colleague at work spent most of yesterday trying to install Vista onto a new 320GB drive in an HP laptop, failing with similar problems only in the end to revert to the original 80GB disk, although that was an older laptop.
On 14/04/11 17:37, Mark Rogers wrote:
However, I got all sorts of disk errors, so (assuming the disk to be faulty) I got another (different brand) 250GB SATA drive and started again - same results. I'm also seeing issues at the POST stage (eg sometimes the BIOS doesn't report a disk being present, sometimes there's no drive to boot from, etc).
I have a couple of thoughts. I'm sure on occasions, I've had "disk errors" when in fact, the problem was that the CMOS battery was flat. The machine would detect the disk parameters sometimes, but not reliably remember it.
The other thought: I have a laptop booting off an external USB disk. My machine has a quick boot option, which skips many standard BIOS checks, then when the BIOS is ready to boot, the disk is not yet ready. The only way I can get that machine to boot reliably is to turn off quick boot, and do a normal old-fashioned slow boot.
Hope you get it sorted.
On 15/04/11 22:01, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
I have a couple of thoughts. I'm sure on occasions, I've had "disk errors" when in fact, the problem was that the CMOS battery was flat. The machine would detect the disk parameters sometimes, but not reliably remember it.
Well I can confirm that switching to a second hand 80GB disk solved the problem so it does seem to be size related in my case.
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Mark Rogers -
steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk -
Wayne Stallwood