Fwd: hp dv9540 laptop second harddrive not detected

[James Takac]

Hi Neils

On Thursday 30 August 2007 00:44:42 Niels Larsen wrote:
> > But isn't this a 2nd hdd, i.e. sdb1? sda1 would be the 1st partion on
> > your 1st drive as I understand it correctly.
>
> Yes, sdb1 is the second harddisk, and the one with the problems
>
> > > Just now I tried to start vista which I have problems with, and after
> > > that the /dev/sdb1 was there again.
> > > ***
> >
> > Did windows per chance crash on an earlier boot? I've found ubuntu wont
> > mount the drive if windows crashes and isn't rebooted 1st to fix the log
> > entries. Meaning you need to reboot windows successfully and then reboot
> > ubuntu for the drive/partion to show up in ubuntu.
>
> Vista will not boot, and I have contacted HP, and is waiting for an answer.
>

If per chance your vista setup is like mine, i.e. 2 partitions (main boot and 
a recovery partion) then I found the hard way that booting the recovery 
partition messed up my ability to boot vista at all resulting in having to 
reinstall it and then redoing grub to bring back the dual boot. So if you had 
2 entries for vista in grub, one is a recovery partion and shouldn't be 
booted from in my experience. I've edited my grub menu to reflect which is 
which. It took a few goes till I worked out which was which and a few 
installations :(

> > Your fstab would seem to suggest the drive/partion is being detected and
> > set as mountable. However u seem to have sumerized the fstab lines rather
> > than give the actual ones? And tell me about vist probs. Dual booting
> > vist
>
> /dev/sdb1		/media/sdb1	ext3		defaults	0	2
>
> > and ubuntu on the other laptop
>
> I installed Vista from new, and made a system recovery cd.
> Then I resized the Vista partition from 60 to 30 gb, and Vista takes some
> 21 gb of space on sda1, but since that Vista will not boot, not even in
> safe mode.
> Then I installed debian and later ubuntu.
>

K then. Sounds like something may have gone wrong during the resizing process? 
U may need to run your recovery cd. If you haven't tried that, maybe worth a 
go

James

> > The fact that sdb1 shows sometimes and not at others reminds me of a post
> > I saw when searching a lil while ago. That one ended up being a bios
> > setting fro the drive. Might I suggest looking at the available options
> > for it in thrhe bios? Maybe the clue is there
>
> I have looked in bios severalt times, but see no options abot settings for
> the harddisks?
>
> > James
> >
> > > > sudo mount /dev/sdb1
> > > >
> > > > ?
> > > >
> > > > Trying to remember the cat command that tells us which drives are
> > > > recognised. Maybe someone else can help there?
> > > >
> > > > Another quick thought. If repeating the instructions gets the drive
> > > > recognized again, try right clicking on the icon for the drive and
> > > > getting the details from its properties. Can't hurt.
> > > >
> > > > am trying to google for your your prob as well, i.g. search something
> > > > like "ubuntu feisty cant mount sata drive" assuming u'r using feisty.
> > > > Try an number of variations on the theme of course.
> > > >
> > > > I'll try and look further, but I suspect it's a variation on the prob
> > > > I had. Would definately suggest to check your bios settings as well.
> > > > What options r available for the drive in Q?
> > > >
> > > > James