My day, a one-act play.

[theweaselking]

[Voiceover: In The Past]
Linux: I am out of disk space, woe.
Me: New hard drives, ho!

[Scene: A desk. With a computer on it. And me.]
BIOS: Love the new hard drives, boss!
Linux: I don't understand those drives, they aren't partitioned.
Me: Partition them!
Linux: Okay, but I don't understand those drives, they aren't partitioned.
Me: Dammit. GParted, get in here!
GParted: SIR REPORTING FOR DUTY SIR! WHOOOOOOOO!
Me: Parition and format these drives!
GParted: SIR WHAT DRIVES SIR?
Me: [facepalm] GParted, go get me a version newer than 2005.
GParted: SIR UPDATED! OH, THOSE DRIVES! YES SIR! PARTITIONING AND FORMATTING THEM NOW! GUNG HO.... DONE! SIR!
Me: Those drives are partitioned, but not formatted.
GParted: SIR WHAT DRIVES, SIR?
Me: Oh, shut up. BIOS!
BIOS: Love the new hard drives, boss. They really bring the awesome.
LiveCD: Dave's not here, man.
Linux: I can't read those drives. They're partitioned with a size of zero. And no partitions. And an unreadable partition table.
Me: So fix it?
Linux: I can't. Why do you hate me? What drives?
Me: Oi.

[scene change. Lights dim to show time passing]

BIOS: A new version? For me? I LOVE it! Best idea ever, boss. And I still love those nice new hard disks. Whoo, new version, I'm getting my 2010 on!
GParted: SIR THOSE DISKS DO NOT EXIST. THEY ARE PROBABLY COMMUNISTS SIR.
LiveCD: Dave's NOT HERE, man.
Linux: I am writing poetry. About mean people who yell at me for disks that don't make any sense. And those disks have a lousy partition table.
Me: Aw, fuckit. Windows!
[enter Windows 7]
Windows: Oooh, those disks have a lousy partition table.
Me: [speaking with face in desk] Yes, Windows. They do.
Windows: Well, let me fix that for you. How many partitions? What size? Would you like me to format them? I like NTFS, but I'm okay with something else.
Me: Yay! How about something else?
Windows: NTFS OR I WILL CUT A BITCH.
Me:.... hoookay, NTFS it is. I don't care, as long as they're partitioned. Linux can handle mkfs, even if fdisk is apparently too complicated today.
Windows: All done! Partitions made, here's your exact lists, and I even threw in a quick format.
BIOS: Whoooo, I LOVE the new hard disks, boss
Linux: I can't read those drives. They're partitioned with a size of zero. And no partitions. And an unreadable partition table. And squirrels are often cruel to me.
Windows: Those look just fine to me. I can read and write to them, see? Now you try it.
Linux: You're not my mom!
LiveCD: I keep telling you, Dave's not here, man.

[exeunt]
=================================

So, yeah.
dmesg shows the drives showing up just fine, but notes that they're big (1.5TB drives). Still, this shouldn't be a problem - OS is Ubuntu 8.0.4.4. Bios sees the drives just fine. GParted saw the drives *briefly* but not any more. Plugging the drives into Windows using a SATA-to-USB adapter works just fine, lets me partition and format them, etc. The drives work just fine, the BIOS should be able to handle a large disk and is up to date anyway.

"fdisk /l" doesn't show the two new hard disks.
"fdisk /dev/sda" or sdb gives "unable to read /dev/sda". sfdisk shows *ZERO* cylinders. Switching the HDD handling in the BIOS from IDE to AHCI and back doesn't change the behaviour.

The only slightly unusual thing here is that the new drives are SATA, the old disk is IDE. Still, that shouldn't matter! Linux sees all three drives, it just thinks the two new ones are made of garbage.

Edit: Connecting the SATA drive to the linux OS using the SATA-to-USB converter (yes I ran a wire from the inside of the case around to plug into the front of the case STOP JUDGING ME) works. It can see *that* drive, no problem. And a fresh install of Ubuntu can't detect the HDDs, even with the IDE drive is disconnected. So! I think the problem is found: Linux hates SATA.

That's the conclusion I've reached, anyway.

Comments

[frith]

That was a riot! I could totally see this as a performance at a theatre festival. ^_^

[kjn]

For bonus points, add in "PC" looking confused by all the attention, and "Mac" shaking his head all the time.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Mac spent most of his time off in the corner ignoring the argument while eating paste.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

"I can't stop laughing" is probably not a useful answer nor the answer you were hoping to get, but it's the only meaningful contribution I can make, so.

*throw icon, duck, run*

[quotation.livejournal.com]

Helpful: I would use the USB-to-SATA thing to connect the drives to the Linux machine and partition/format them with that instead of trying to use the motherboard SATA chipset to do it.

My gut says to blame the kernel module for the SATA chipset on the motherboard. I suspect similar frustration if you try an old 200GB SATA drive.

Unhelpful: SATA is for boot SSDs, any spinning disk containing "data" should be connected by ethernet, hosted on a device from netapp, synology or QNap.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I in fact used the SATA-to-USB thing to connect the drives to the linux machine, partition them properly, and format them. Then I had to connect them back with SATA because the USB thining is $20 and I oinly have one and it's MINE. And suddenly the problem recurred.

Ubuntu *10* is right now as of this moment not having this problem. So I think the real solution here is obvious.

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

So you basically compared Linux kernel drivers from 2008 to current Windows drivers.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

More, I was annoyed to discover that Ubuntu 8 wouldn't talk to a simple fucking SATA disk, nor would Ubuntu 10 from a LiveCD, nor GParted from Dec 20, 2011.

Windows worked over SATA-to-USB, but, then, so did Ubuntu 8.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Also: Tell you what, you spot me $50,000 for a FAS2040, I'll install it in the offices of the people who have a total of 200GB of data they care about and are currently running with RAID, a mirrored backup server also running RAID, and USB HDDs for offsites.

[quotation.livejournal.com]

Sounds like http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_357&item_id=034712 might be better for their needs.

Also: I added the "unhelpful" preface because I get it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That doesn't seem to have any advantages over a Samba server running mdadm for mirroring the file store, given that they want the samba server in the first place.

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

*cackle*

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

What liveCD you used? Distro etc? Can you use something else, just to test WTF is going on?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

I don't want to start a distro war, but any chance if you can boot off from, say, Fedora or CentOS LiveCD and see if they also fail to recognize the SATA disks?

'Cause seriously, what's going on just doesn't sound right; I've used Linux + SATA sans problems for ages and this stymies me (even more so than usual).

[alchemist.livejournal.com]

I'd expect RHEL/CentOS/SL to see it, since RH has put a lot of engineering into the SATA drivers. Ubuntu 11.10 might have a better chance as well.

I also wonder - 64bit vs 32bit might be an issue as well.

But I agree - that's kinda crazy. Unless....

...does the BIOS have one of those fun flags to change the disk addressing for DOS? The disks may just be too damn big for that kernel as presented.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The BIOS *does* have one of those fun flags - but turning it off doesn't help.

Ubuntu 10.04 x86 LiveCD = can't see the fucking drives. Ubuntu 8.04 Server x64 = can't see the fucking drives. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS x64 server? Can see the fucking drives.

Since the end user prefers Debians, Ubuntu 10 was the way to go. It's currently, 8 hours later, syncing 1.5TB of /dev/mdx

[alchemist.livejournal.com]

OK, I can see that since I bet 10 x64 LTS has a slightly newer kernel than 10 liveboot x32.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Ubuntu 10.04 *server* saw them perfectly well during the install. And that worked.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Well then, if the situation is now under control... :)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Also: The last Linux+SATA problem I had was in 2006, when Debian Stable didn't carry SATA drivers. Which is why today's drove me *so nuts*.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

I held it together until I got to the squirrels.

[ipslore.livejournal.com]

Set it on fire and start over.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That is awfully close to my solution!

[secretagentmoof]

Let me guess: these are "green" drives with 4k blocks?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Not sure, I didn't look that closely and now they're on the other side of the city.

[secretagentmoof]

I ask 'cuz I've seen Linux (and NetBSD) have weird issues where the unemulated 4k block style would cause strange partitioning/visibility issues. When using USB, though, the drive would pretend to use 512-block bytes and all would be OK.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Excellent question. Is there a way to tell that remotely? Because I'm not interested in going onsite and looking at the HDDs, but I have remote access.

[secretagentmoof]

If dmesg doesn't indicate directly what the blocksize is, it should (if nothing else) indicate what drive model/manufacturer it is. (If it doesn't, fdisk/gparted/etc should.)

[lirion.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for turning your pain and frustration into hilarity for those of us in the peanut gallery. Sorry, no helpful suggestions from me, I can understand a lot more geek than I can speak :)

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

So since the SATA/USB solution works for Windows and Linux, maybe the issue is a funky internal SATA cable? I can't tell if you also tried the Windows install using the internal SATA connector instead of just the SATA/USB.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Only if it was *two* funky internal SATA cables, which both failed in the same way at the same time, since there were two identical new disks. And no, I didn't try to install windows - I connected them via USB to a Windows machine and did the partition/formatting from there, before returning them to linux.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Ah, I assumed the SATA cables stayed with the motherboard and didn't know they came with the disk. And I meant Windows install as a noun, I got that it was a separate computer somewhere that you were plugging the disks into FROM INSIDE THE CASE. (dramatic music)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The MB didn't have any SATA cables until I added SATA disks. I *did* try different SATA ports on the motherboard - but all that meant was the BIOS showed the disks in different places and the OS treated them the same way.

[aeduna.livejournal.com]

Linux hates SATA.
Known issue *hateface*