[CentOS] OT: Dell BIOS and mixed drives

Barry Schiffman schiffo2000 at yahoo.com
Wed Jan 16 18:08:16 UTC 2008


--- "David G. Miller" <dave at davenjudy.org> wrote:

> "Jerry S." <bugzjer at aol.com> top posted his reply:
> 
> > In the BIOS you should also be able to specify the
> boot drive as well.
> >
> > jer
> >
> > Barry Schiffman wrote:
> >   
> >> > I have a Dell Precision 360, which has both
> onboard
> >> > SATA and ultra ATA controllers, and I put one
> of each
> >> > kind of drive into the bays to make an
> experimental
> >> > machine with the xen kernel. 
> >> > 
> >> > After enabling both of drives, the BIOS
> recognizes
> >> > each drive, but it fails to boot, giving me the
> >> > message "secondary drive 1 not found". The BIOS
> gives
> >> > me a choice of going ahead or going to setup.
> Choosing
> >> > 'continue anyway' has no effect.
> >> > 
> >> > I can circumvent this going to F12 to manually
> choose
> >> > to boot from the 'Primary Master' (rather than
> the
> >> > SATA primary, or the CD, or Hard Disk Drive
> C:). I
> >> > still get the warning about secondary drive 1
> not
> >> > found, but now I can choose to go ahead. At
> this
> >> > point, grub takes over and everything is fine,
> boots
> >> > fine, both drives show up. 
> >> > 
> >> > In fact, I installed CentOS from the DVD, and
> during
> >> > installation there was no hint of a problem
> with using
> >> > the two drives.
> >> > 
> >> > In the BIOS setup, I do not get all the drives
> to
> >> > choose from -- just Hard Disk Drive C: and the
> CD. 
> >> > 
> >> > Can anyone suggest a way around this?
> Depending on the BIOS options, you may be able to
> set the SATA to "no 
> auto-detect" and "no drive".  The kernel should
> still probe the SATA 
> channel and give you access to the drive once the
> system is up.  This is 
> highly BIOS dependent but I've seen it work as
> described when the BIOS 
> supports it.
> 
> It's kind of strange that the BIOS is complaining
> about "secondary drive 
> 1 not found".  Sounds like a BIOS bug.  Is there a
> BIOS update available?
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave

I believe that's the case. In fact, there have been
four updates since the version that's on the box now.
They address a bunch of issues, but nothing quite like
this. Either, I'll hunt up another SATA drive
(presumably Dell sold these with with two drives) or
I'll do the update in the next week or so. 

The options in this BIOS is limited. AUTO or OFF. When
it's off, it's invisible from there on.

Thanks,

Barry



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