i7 Compatibility issue?

Hi all,

Since Wednesday, I've been trying to install the eagerly anticipated CAELinux distro, but no matter what I do, I cannot get the Ubuntu installer to detect my HD drives/partitions. the plan is to dual boot with Vista, which is already installed. Vista has no problem detecting the partitions on my main drive.

I am starting to think that the 8.04 OS simply does not support my computer architecture (intel i7 on an asus p6t motherboard) - a prospect that is hinted in this thread:

ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=883275...a+install&page=3

I even tried to install Ubuntu 9.04 using wubi (brilliant software btw ), which worked instantaneously.

Attempted/failed fixes:
- Format Ubuntu partition to fat32 in Vista
- Update BIOS to newest version
- Download newest SATA controller
- Run SATA in compatible (legacy) mode

... still no disks visible.

I purchased my computerparts with the specific purpose of handling large CFD simulations - preferably in CAELinux.

Does anyone have any inputs on this problem? Any helt would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Jakob<br /><br />Post edited by: Jakob Andersen, at: 2009/06/22 19:45

I dont know much about this stuff but are you trying to put Linux on a FAT32 type partition? At the very least that is not recommended. I have seen countless posts advising the use of ext type file systems. I guess one advantage with FAT would be that Vista would be able to view the files on the Linux partition whereas if you format it as an ext type Vista does not recognize it. The ext type partition also causes problems with stupid Windows 'check up' programs that often come on HP computers. I keep getting messages advising me to reformat the &quot;unused&quot; portion of the drive so that Vista can eat it up. I suspect it knows Linux is there and is just being an evil Windows based app... No need for those types of programs in Linux!

Regards,
- Matt Bondy

It works!

Indeed, the Ubuntu install was not able to detect my disks in IDE mode - changing the setting to AHCI did the trick. Unfortunately Vista cannot boot under that setting so it needs to be changed before booting. I think one solution is to add &quot;all_generic_ide&quot; to the grub bootloader sequence for Ubuntu.

Now my only hurdle is getting my WiFi dongle up and running.

But anyway - thanks a lot for the help!

I am looking forward to benchamarking my computer on some CFD problems.

best regards,

Jakob

BTW Matthew B: The &quot;format to fat32&quot; idea was given to me in a danish Ubuntu forum - the point being, that maybe Ubuntu would be able to detect a partition of that kind. This ofcourse, was not really the problem. BIOS settings were to blame. Also, regarding your comment on windows and ext; I just downloaded a programme that can enable windows to read ext formats - it is called &quot;Ext2IFS&quot; ( www.fs-driver.org/ ). I haven't tried it though.

The ability to access the linux partition through windows would be pretty sweet. Thanks for the heads up. On the other hand it would have me using Windows more (right now the one way ability to access the entire hard drive makes Linux very attractive).

- Matt Bondy