[Noisebridge-discuss] bios sees hard drive, but won't offer it as a boot option

[Michael Shiloh]

Good ideas both. I had tried both removing the optical drive, and I did 
make sure the hard disk was configured as the master. No luck.

The way the user guide is phrased, the IDE controller is for "optical 
drives and tape backup", suggests that perhaps they never intended for a 
hard drive there, let alone to boot from it. It would seem odd to 
explicitly leave that out of the boot source options, but perhaps that 
explains it.

I'll see if I can find a free SATA drive. Perhaps I can boot off a small 
SATA drive, and then mount the large drive on the IDE channel.

(I should point out that after booting Linux from a live CD, I had no 
trouble seeing, mounting, and installing to the hard drive.)

On 01/16/2011 07:11 PM, John Morgan wrote:
> It appears to be a flaw in the BIOS.
> http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/906/t/17500838.aspx
>
> Not sure if they've updated the BIOS or not, but one person with a
> poweredge 650 having the same problems, suggested setting the HDD to the
> primary IDE channel (instead of the DVD drive) which may allow you to
> boot from the hard drive.  Obviously this isn't the best solution, and i
> have no idea if it actually works...
>
> -John
>
> On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 6:00 PM, Sean Cusack <sean.p.cusack at gmail.com
> <mailto:sean.p.cusack at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     If you can't set the boot order priority in BIOS to include your
>     HDD, then something is fuzxed to all hell in there. I'd flash your
>     BIOS and try again (which prolly means digging out a 3.5" floppy
>     drive...*groan*)
>
>     Sean
>
>
>     On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 5:56 PM, Michael Shiloh
>     <michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com <mailto:michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com>>
>     wrote:
>
>         Here's a new one on me.
>
>         I'm installing Linux on a Dell PowerEdge 800. It has one IDE
>         controller
>         and 4 SATA slots. I have no SATA drives, only one each IDE DVD
>         drive and
>         IDE hard disk.
>
>         The BIOS booted from my DVD drive, found my hard drive, and
>         allowed me
>         to install Linux to the hard disk. Popped out the DVD, rebooted,
>         and was
>         told I had no boot device. Went back to the BIOS, and found that
>         although the IDE hard drive is indicated and found, only the DVD
>         drive
>         is offered as a boot option.
>
>         I did reboot with my live CD and checked the MBR, and indeed it is
>         flagged as bootable. Not that I think it's getting this far anyway.
>
>         Any ideas?
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