# [SOLVED]Hard drive not showing up in /dev, works fine CD

## xenspidey

First off, i'm a complete gentoo newb. I have been running Linux for years and have tried all the main flavors, but am very enticed by the hands on customize-ability of gentoo. I am really liking gentoo so far and have learned more installing gentoo than i have my entire linux life.

So here's my question: I have (2) SATA drives, (1) for OS's and (1) for storage. Since i dual boot windows and needed large file support, the storage drive is formatted NTFS. As i said in the title, the storge drive shows up as /dev/sda and is able to be mounted during installation from the CD. The hard drive i use for installing gentoo is /dev/sdb1-5. Once i go through the setup and configure the boot loader for /dev/sdb4 (my /boot partition) and reboot i lose the storage drive and my gentoo hard drive switches to /dev/sda1-5. I have to edit grub on boot to find my gentoo partition to get it to boot. Once in my fresh install there is no /dev/sdb only /dev/sda1-5 (my gentoo drive).

Since both drives are Western Digital SATA drives i can't imagine there being a kernel SATA driver problem. The only thing i can think of is with the file system but i can't find the right combination of kernel drivers to get it to recognize the drive in /dev. 

Any ideas?Last edited by xenspidey on Wed Aug 17, 2011 10:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## VoidMage

Quite convoluted post.

1. Does grub boot your system till you can login ?

2. Are all of your partitions listed in /proc/partitions ?

3. What does 'lspci -k' print (both for installation cd and (if you are able to) hard drive) ?Last edited by VoidMage on Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## DirtyHairy

Are both drives connected to the same controller?

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## xenspidey

 *VoidMage wrote:*   

> Quite convoluted post.
> 
> 1. Does grub boot your system till you can login ?
> 
> 2. Are all of your partitions listed in /proc/partitions ?
> ...

 

Sorry for the convoluted post..

1. grub will error out because when i install grub to the boot loader from the gentoo install CD my gentoo installation is on (hd1,3). Without the gentoo install CD my gentoo installation is on (hd0,3). I have to manually set root to (hd0,3) and /dev/sda3 from the grub menu on boot up.

2. all my partitions on the gentoo hard drive are showing in /proc/partitions. nothing from my storage hard drive are shown

3.  This is only from my booted gentoo install... i'm doing this from ssh but i'll try it again with the install CD tonight.

        SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [IDE mode]

        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device b002

        Kernel driver in use: ahci

 *DirtyHairy wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Are both drives connected to the same controller?

 

Yes i only have one controller on the motherboard (that i know of). gentoo hard drive in SATA port 0 and storage in STAT port 4 i believe

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## NeddySeagoon

xenspidey,

```
SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [IDE mode] 
```

This SATA controller supports six SATA drives when its set the AHCI mode. When this controller is set to IDE mode, it only supports four drives.

IDE Mode is only ever intended at allow windows XP users to install the AHCI driver before switching out of IDE Mode forever.

On some chipsets IDE mode is not fully functional, there is no DMA support, some drives are not seen, etc.

You are using the right driver,  ahci, which is good.  

If you switch to AHCI mode in the BIOS, it might all JustWork at the expense of breaking Windows until you install the Windows AHCI driver. You will need to be in IDE mode for that if you are an XP user.

 *Quote:*   

> SATA port 0 and storage in STAT port 4

 ports 4 and 5 would be lost ...

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## xenspidey

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> xenspidey,
> 
> If you switch to AHCI mode in the BIOS, it might all JustWork at the expense of breaking Windows until you install the Windows AHCI driver. You will need to be in IDE mode for that if you are an XP user.
> 
> 

 

I currently do not have Windows installed (until i get the gaming bug again) so i should be able to switch it in BIOS without any detriment... I would assume that the AHCI driver would be automatically installed the next time i install Windows.

Thanks for the quick replies everyone!

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## xenspidey

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> xenspidey,
> 
> If you switch to AHCI mode in the BIOS, it might all JustWork at the expense of breaking Windows until you install the Windows AHCI driver. You will need to be in IDE mode for that if you are an XP user.

 

On my way home from work i was thinking about it... if it's a BIOS thing then how does the gentoo install CD find it? How would it work on other linux flavors... 

Is there a way that the AHCI driver would be set to IDE mode? if so how can i fix it? if not, are there any other suggestions?

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## NeddySeagoon

xenspidey,

The AHCI driver does not have an IDE mode.  Its a chipset thing.

Some chipsets provide AHCI and IDE interfaces at the same time, like some versions of yours.  They need two drivers. There is AHCI and ATI PATA.

Does the liveCD use both drivers?

Other combined chipsets (e.g. Intel) have a combined driver.

When the chipset is set to AHCI mode you cannot install Windows XP without an external AHCI driver, as Windows XP predates the AHCI standard by a long way and AHCI drivers are not provided on the XP install disk.

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## xenspidey

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> xenspidey,
> 
> The AHCI driver does not have an IDE mode.  Its a chipset thing.
> 
> Some chipsets provide AHCI and IDE interfaces at the same time, like some versions of yours.  They need two drivers. There is AHCI and ATI PATA.
> ...

 

I see, well that makes sense, next time i install win 7 i'll keep that in mind...

i did go through the bios and there were settings to SATA ports 0-3 and ports 4 and 5. i set them bothe tho AHCI and everything "just worked" you must be right about the liveCD having more than one driver. and i suppose the other distros that i've used did basically the same thing. 

i appreciate all your help.. i also learned another lesson in all of this, don't just overwrite the same kernel every time, now i have to go through and figure out what i added for the past few days of trial and error to get back to a smaller unbloated kernel.

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## NeddySeagoon

xenspidey,

Windows 7 has the AHCI driver, so it will just install.

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