[CentOS] OT: Dell BIOS and mixed drives

Tue Jan 15 17:45:48 UTC 2008
Robert - elists <lists07 at abbacomm.net>

> 
> 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?
> 
> 

Check support.dell.com for newer BIOS and update as necessary

 - rh