# Hardrive not Sending Boot Files?

## Teufelhunden

Ok, here is the issue:

I've been booting fine w/ two diffrent harddrives in one tower (Via switching the cabels[IDE PATA] every boot for what I want to run).  Recently, the cable broke because of all the ripping out and replacing.  I tried using the "slave" part of the cable, but only the windows HD would boot, not the linux one.  When it was powered up, I would get a bios screen with a "DHCP ..." waiting thing, untill I got a message saying the bios couldn't get any boot files, and my machine would shut down.  I figured this was an issue w/ linux booting on a slave portion of the cable.  So, I ordered some new cables.  Same problem.  All I have access too is my windows HD, any help?

P.S. It isn't just coincidence, it is deffinatly the cables.  My linux HD worked when I borrowed an IDE cable from another system.Last edited by Teufelhunden on Fri Sep 29, 2006 11:52 am; edited 1 time in total

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## Teufelhunden

1 day, 24 views, no response.  I seem to have myself a genuine problem!

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## agent_jdh

You say IDE SATA.  What do you mean?  Describe your configuration.  Do you have one SATA hard drive and one PATA one (assume you must as you refer to 'slave' connection).

The DHCP thing means your onboard LAN adapter is looking to boot as your machine can't find a local device (e.g. cdrom, hard drive) to boot from.

Why didn't you install a boot manager on one of your hard drives so you could select which OS to boot without having to swap cables (with the inevitable result of a broken cable)?

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## Teufelhunden

 *agent_jdh wrote:*   

> You say IDE SATA.  What do you mean?  Describe your configuration.  Do you have one SATA hard drive and one PATA one (assume you must as you refer to 'slave' connection).
> 
> The DHCP thing means your onboard LAN adapter is looking to boot as your machine can't find a local device (e.g. cdrom, hard drive) to boot from.
> 
> Why didn't you install a boot manager on one of your hard drives so you could select which OS to boot without having to swap cables (with the inevitable result of a broken cable)?

 

Oh, I'm sorry, they are both IDE (PATA) cables, I don't know what possessed me to say SATA.

And I couldn't use a boot manager, because my motherboard only supports two PATA devices (HD and CD drives), and when I tried to use the same cable on the two harddrives w/master and slave I just couldn't get it working.

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## syg00

Sounds like you have the Linux disk jumpered as "master", and the Windoze disk as "cable"select".

Try jumpering the Linux disk as "cable select" - generally a better option for everything these days.

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## Teufelhunden

 *syg00 wrote:*   

> Sounds like you have the Linux disk jumpered as "master", and the Windoze disk as "cable"select".
> 
> Try jumpering the Linux disk as "cable select" - generally a better option for everything these days.

 

"jumpering"?

I looked in my BIOS config for anything to do with jumpering, I have no idea what your talking about.

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## syg00

Physical jumper (maybe yellow or white) on the back of the drive itself - next to the interface connector probably.

Hopefully your doco (or a sticker on the drive itself) will explain.

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## Teufelhunden

Ah, I found what you ment.  It was already set to "cable select".  I tried setting it to "master, single drive" but it was a no-go.

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## Teufelhunden

Hmm... after a little further investigation, I am still at a loss.  My linux HD is said to be made for ATA100, which is what my cables support (ATA100/133).  So how could it be the fault of the cables?  I don't know, does linux need something special boot paramatiers to use ATA100?  Was it that my old cables used a lower version of ATA which linux supports natively?

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## agent_jdh

 *Teufelhunden wrote:*   

> Hmm... after a little further investigation, I am still at a loss.  My linux HD is said to be made for ATA100, which is what my cables support (ATA100/133).  So how could it be the fault of the cables?  I don't know, does linux need something special boot paramatiers to use ATA100?  Was it that my old cables used a lower version of ATA which linux supports natively?

 

The actual cable shouldn't be a problem.  It sounds like your PC is simply not seeing the drive with Linux on it (as it goes to try and boot from the network adapter) - are you sure you haven't damaged the connector on that hard drive as well as the IDE cable?  Does your PC BIOS 'see' the Linux hard drive?

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## Teufelhunden

 *agent_jdh wrote:*   

> 
> 
> The actual cable shouldn't be a problem.  It sounds like your PC is simply not seeing the drive with Linux on it (as it goes to try and boot from the network adapter) - are you sure you haven't damaged the connector on that hard drive as well as the IDE cable?  Does your PC BIOS 'see' the Linux hard drive?

 

Yes, the BIOS sees the hd, that is not a problem...

And what leads me to belive it is the cable is the fact that I can boot the linux HD w/ some cables, and not most.

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## yabbadabbadont

 *Teufelhunden wrote:*   

>  *agent_jdh wrote:*   
> 
> The actual cable shouldn't be a problem.  It sounds like your PC is simply not seeing the drive with Linux on it (as it goes to try and boot from the network adapter) - are you sure you haven't damaged the connector on that hard drive as well as the IDE cable?  Does your PC BIOS 'see' the Linux hard drive? 
> 
> Yes, the BIOS sees the hd, that is not a problem...
> ...

 

It could be that some of the cables are the old style 40 ribbon type (the ones that don't work) and the ones that work are the new 80 ribbon type.  (which are required for ATA100 operation)  If you have them side by side, it should be apparent which is which.

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## Headrush

 *yabbadabbadont wrote:*   

> It could be that some of the cables are the old style 40 ribbon type (the ones that don't work) and the ones that work are the new 80 ribbon type.  (which are required for ATA100 operation)  If you have them side by side, it should be apparent which is which.

 

Exactly what I thought also.

Isn't 80pin required to use cable select also?

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## yabbadabbadont

 *Headrush wrote:*   

>  *yabbadabbadont wrote:*   It could be that some of the cables are the old style 40 ribbon type (the ones that don't work) and the ones that work are the new 80 ribbon type.  (which are required for ATA100 operation)  If you have them side by side, it should be apparent which is which. 
> 
> Exactly what I thought also.
> 
> Isn't 80pin required to use cable select also?

 

I don't believe it is when running in ATA33 mode.  I have some older drives that support CS, but they don't go higher than ATA33.

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## Headrush

 *yabbadabbadont wrote:*   

> I don't believe it is when running in ATA33 mode.  I have some older drives that support CS, but they don't go higher than ATA33.

 

Could be, been a long while since I touched a 40pin IDE cable.   :Wink: 

I never use cable select either but that's just because I'm set in my old ways.   :Laughing: 

Edit: Just read that not all 40pin cables support cable select properly.

 *Quote:*   

> If you set both drives to "CS" and then use them on a regular (non-cable-select) IDE cable, both drives will configure themselves as "master", causing a configuration conflict.

 

More info can be read at www.ata-atapi.com and www.pcguide.com

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## yabbadabbadont

Interesting.  I didn't know that.  I miss the days of setting the jumpers so that the drive was at SCSI ID 0 through 6.  (Adaptec always booted from 0 and IBM from 6)  ((At least their micro-channel adapters worked that way))

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## Headrush

 *yabbadabbadont wrote:*   

> Interesting.  I didn't know that.  I miss the days of setting the jumpers so that the drive was at SCSI ID 0 through 6.  (Adaptec always booted from 0 and IBM from 6)  ((At least their micro-channel adapters worked that way))

 

Tell me about, you could make a living fixing SCSI termination problems!   :Laughing: 

I swear I was called every week with someone having Mac problems after adding a new SCSI device.

Ah, nice to see old familiar back.   :Wink: 

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## yabbadabbadont

 *Headrush wrote:*   

>  *yabbadabbadont wrote:*   Interesting.  I didn't know that.  I miss the days of setting the jumpers so that the drive was at SCSI ID 0 through 6.  (Adaptec always booted from 0 and IBM from 6)  ((At least their micro-channel adapters worked that way)) 
> 
> Tell me about, you could make a living fixing SCSI termination problems!  
> 
> I swear I was called every week with someone having Mac problems after adding a new SCSI device.
> ...

 

I can't count how many times I spent half the night on the phone with idiots who wouldn't spend the $2.50 to buy a new terminator.  I had one guy pull the terminator off of one running system to put on the one I was trouble-shooting when I told him I thought that it was the problem.  Oy.  I don't miss that part at all.  Thank God for internal termination resistors.  We used to have the same trouble with people when dealing with the (50ohm?) terminators for BNC ethernet networks.

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## Teufelhunden

 *yabbadabbadont wrote:*   

> 
> 
> It could be that some of the cables are the old style 40 ribbon type (the ones that don't work) and the ones that work are the new 80 ribbon type.  (which are required for ATA100 operation)  If you have them side by side, it should be apparent which is which.

 

Well, the original cable that broke was an 80 ribbon, but I took one from my CD drive to replace it, and that is a 40 ribbon, so I don't see why these new cables (Which are also 40 ribbon) wouldn't work.

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## yabbadabbadont

80 ribbon cables are *required* to run at speeds above ATA33.  The extra ground wires are needed to stop signal interference at the higher speeds.

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## Teufelhunden

 *yabbadabbadont wrote:*   

> 80 ribbon cables are *required* to run at speeds above ATA33.  The extra ground wires are needed to stop signal interference at the higher speeds.

 

Well... seagate mentions on their site that it can run ATA33/66 if needed, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was just using ATA33, but why would some 40-pin cables work and others not?

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## Headrush

 *Teufelhunden wrote:*   

> I wouldn't be surprised if it was just using ATA33, but why would some 40-pin cables work and others not?

 

Because companies make cheap knockoffs to save a bit of money.

At the time when these were made most people didn't use cable select so it wasn't a big deal then.

Same way some UTP ethernet cable as only 4 wires and not 8. (The RJ45 connector is still the same)

For most people it will work fine, but anyone expect 8 wires for ethernet and digital lines would have a problem.

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