sab 3.4 does not see my partitions on my sata drive!

[wec]

Hi all!
I have upgraded my pc and I am using an ASUS P5K-SE MB with Intel P35 + ICH9 chipset.
The problem I am having is when I go to select the partition I want to install Sabayon on I don't see any partitions at all.I have 9 partitions on my 250 gig sata drive.I also have an IDE 80 gig drive and that does not show up at all.Any help would be appreciated.

WEC

[WarraWarra]

Nice motherboard. Good to hear it boots the P35 without any bugs.

What happens is that some or the other software was used to create the partitions and this either messed the MBR master boot record up or wrote the partitions with incorrect sizes / information / attributes or even overlapping.

Might want to make a backup of all important info / mp3's / documents and then get for windows "Acronnis disk director" even if it is the demo version and then try to fix the MBR as well as might have to del the new space for linux and redo it / create it again.
Acronis should restart the pc and do this before windows loads and once complete try SL again and see if it recognizes the partitions.
This works most of the time and as last resort you might have to delete and create a partition at a time and copy info over to new correct partition if you do not have a usb type hd / dvd to backup to or just do a clean erase all and then create them again. My 1 windows install disk does this sometimes.

Also check for "Acronis migrate" easy as this can clone the partition / hd if needed also demo or payed for version.

Vista is another can of worms , just search for vista here in the forums as we should ahve a working guide I think.

Hope this helps.

[wec]

Thanks for the info but what I don't understand is I am using Mepis 7.0 and Mandriva 2007.1 sprint without any problems seeing my hd partitions also opensuse.I use gag for my boot loader and all my distro's boot from root.None of the linux distro's see my IDE 80 gig drive because of the marvell adapter ,this being a newner mb.I never had any problems with sabayon with my old MB.

Here is my PC hard ware.

Power Supply- Ultra 500Watts
CPU- Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Socket LGA775, 2.33 GHz,1333 MHz FSB.
Memory- OCZ DDR2-6400 800MHz 2GB (2X1024mb)
Motherboard- Asus P5k-SE Socket 775 Intel P35 + ICH9 Chipset Dual--Channel DDR2
1066/800/667,GigaLAN SATA/eSATA HD Audio Support 1333 Mhz CPU
Monitor- BenQ FP94vw 19" LCD 1440x900 800:1 2ms
Hard Drives- Seagate Barracude 250GB SATA 16mb Cache and Maxtor IDE 80gig
DVD Drive- LG SATA LightScribe DVD Writer (x2)
video card-BFG 7300


Other distro's that don't see hd partitions that I tried,PCL2007,Fedora7.0 and Ubuntu7.04 &7.10.Sure would like to use Sabayon.If all else fails I will formate my sata drive.Thanks for all your help.

WEC

[WarraWarra]

1* It could be that the bios is not reading the info correctly as SL does dig deep into hardware info or something that is why grub list the hd's as 4537895237-8435857-834732566-824478 instead of just /dev/sda3 , check asus website for latest bios and update if needed.

http://usa.asus.com/products2.aspx?l1=3&l2=-1

This is the closest to specs I could find , looks like they use the marvell as a standard chip in most of their newer boards:
http://www.debianhelp.org/node/9176

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&clie ... tnG=Search

Might check yours using lspci in any linux distro and if same as above then you can end up installing the driver in the google search above.

2* Could be GAG that the grub in SL does not know how to interpret GAG or gag writes it own funny info to the MBR and is the cause of the problems.

3* It could be some hd's does not want to be on the same eide / ata cable as a dvd or the jumper settings on the hd is incorrect , check manufctr. website for correct jumper settings , should be master on ata /eide cable. Then try below cheat.

4* Cheat that might just work.
You might want to try a good stable partition software like UBCD http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ then you know the partition must work by default and is correct , browse to lower part of link for the info and possibly run a hd check overnight on the 80gb to make sure it is okay.
Disconnect the sata hd's leaving only 80gb , partition to 1 big partition /set active the boot part / format the 80gb to fat32 , boot from SL and see if it recognizes the hd. Not sure what partition program you use but stick to old school / old standard settings no fancy 64k ntfs just standard fat32. Using say the WD software if a WD drive and prepare the hd also works and can again be partitioned later in linux.
If it does read the hd then install as if this would be the only hd and no fancy gag boot loader only default grub /auto options and software selection you want / need and restart making sure it loads and works normally.

5* Then reconnect the sata hd's and enter GAG and edit the partition to boot the device then being /dev/hda3 possibly or however it is labeled to start the hd containing SL. Do not write gag to SL hd / partition as SL does not have it installed so no idea what the effects could be jsut "chainload +1" if needed.

6* Google for grub boot loader and "chainload + 1"

More than this you might have to return the motherboard and or have the hd tested as I have received mad motherboards before where the ata controller even in windblows rubish has issues and had to return for replacement = bad batch of products.
This bug over several distro's is not normal at all.

Hope something here helps.

[wec]

I have formated my hd and did not install winxp(grand kids game use) and I can see the partitions now.Some how winxp screwed my MBR or something.I still don't see my IDE 80 gig drive.I had even tried to install winxp on the ide with sata disconnected.Winxp could not find ide drive.I will try to find the problem if I can.I would like to thank you very much for all your help and time.I only have one problem with sabayon Kmix will not show up on system tray.

wec