[K12OSN] RE: Assign Drive letter c: to ata drive in linux (Glenn Arnold)

Carl Keil carl at snarlnet.com
Tue Oct 26 15:54:43 UTC 2004


Hi everyone,

I thought I'd update the list since many of you tried to help me out.  I 
finally called Dell.  I don't know why I hesitated.  Well, I do know why, 
most companies are exceedingly rude when you tell them you're running 
Linux, (ISPs, HD manufacturers, retail outlets, etc.)  Anyway, I've never 
had a better experience being told that I was out of luck.  The guy was 
totally cool (all I ask for is a little empathy from someone who's telling 
me I'm screwed by the way his product is set up), but told me that the Dell 
poweredge BIOS doesn't support "mixing" drives.  I can have all sata or all 
ide and boot from either primary.  Or, I can boot from the sata, but I 
simply can't boot from the ide and keep the sata in there without that f12 
intervention at startup.  So, looks like I'm going to be buying another 
sata drive.

Thanks for puzzling over this with me, next time I'll call Dell first.

ck






Did you look at the boot sequence in the Dell Bios?  This usually controls 
the boot order of ide devices.  Just make the Sata Drive the first boot 
device or ahead of your other ide hard drive.

-Glenn

-----Original Message-----
From: "Terrell Prudé, Jr." [mailto:microman at cmosnetworks.com]
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 7:24 PM
To: Support list for opensource software in schools.
Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Assign Drive letter c: to ata drive in linux

Carl Keil wrote:

 > Hi,
 >
 > I'm still having trouble booting my DELL 400sc server after installing
 > a sata drive for /home.  The BIOS is looking for a C: drive to boot
 > from, there's no option to look at the IDE bus, or primary IDE or
 > something.  So, does anyone know how to make this thing think that the
 > Primary ATA drive is a "C:" drive?  If I take the SATA buss offline in
 > the BIOS it boots fine.  If I don't I have to hit F12 at bootup and go
 > into a special boot menu where I can select "Primary IDE" and it boots
 > fine.  I'd like it to boot without intervention like that.
 >
 > Thanks,
 >
 > ck


I take it that Dell support didn't have any ideas on this one?  This
sounds like a Dell-specific thing.





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