Problems installing Linux (all flavours)

"No drives found to partition" error

[trillianjedi]

This is an HP NetServer 2000 dual PIII proc with dual SCSI disks.

I've tried Fedora, Debian and Mandrake - all bail out at the same point, complaining they can't find any partitions to install to.

I've been through the BIOS for the SCSI card. The two drives (pair of 36gig Fujitsu's) are perfectly accessible by the BIOS and I was able to initialise them, set up a new "container" with the pair acting as a RAID array and the BIOS had no trouble formatting them etc. Perfectly visible. This is an HP NetServer 2000. I can't remember the name of the SCSI controller but I can post that up when I get home if it's important.

The installs consistently fail and seem unable to address these drives.

Can anyone point me in the right direction of what to examine next? I've been through all BIOS and SCSI card options and can't seem to spot anything that "looks" wrong.

I could probably whack in an IDE drive and have it work off the bat, but I'd like to take advantage of the dual SCSI disks in the machine as they're there, and they're quick.

I have no prior experience with SCSI to fall back on - this is my first attempt at doing anything with SCSI disks, so please be gentle ;)

Thanks!

TJ

[webdoctor]

Most likely the kernel doesn't have the drivers to use the SCSI controller. I've had this problem before, and ended up adding a IDE drive just to get things going quickly. You say that the SCSI drives are quick - bear in mind that a modern $50 IDE drive might have just as good performance as a three year old $500 SCSI drive - and probably ten times the capacity.

I've had the strange scenario that an older version of linux (based on a 2.4 kernel) could see my SCSI drives, but that a newer version (with a 2.6 kernel) couldn't. What version of Fedora / Debian / Mandrake did you try?

You could try booting with a Knoppix Live CD/DVD to see if you can see any hard drives.

You could also try SuSE Linux (disclaimer: it's my favourite linux - I use it on all my production boxes). SuSE make an entirely free version now (search for 'opensuse'), or stickymail me and I'll send you a copy of the full version :-)

[trillianjedi]

Thanks Webdoctor.

I managed to get Mandrake 10.0 to install - so it is indeed a driver issue as you say.

Fedora was version 3, debian was the very latest from their site, downloaded on Saturday.

I'm not sure what kernal Mandrake 10.0 is, but I presume anything else with the same would work?

Having said that, I can't find much wrong with Mandrake anyway so I might just use that. I only really need Apache and MySQL on there.

Thanks,

TJ

[webdoctor]

I presume anything else with the same would work?

It depends on kernel modules, not just the kernel version.

Different flavours of linux might ship with the same kernel, but with different modules loaded by default.