I tried installing debian and now my box won't boot
with the second hard drive connected.
Late last year I attempted to install Debian 3.0R1. I
booted off the cd, told it to boot the default kernel,
it started booting, and on the second screen it
freezes on something involving the hard drives. I
rebooted and tried the other boot options (vanilla,
compact, then idepci). When i tried idepci it didn't
even get to the second screen. Irritated at the whole
thing I decided to give up and try later, so I pull
out the cd and restart the box, but it wouldn't start.
No beep, no post, just a blank screen. I cracked open
the case and fiddled until I found out that the
problem was the second drive (slave on the secondary
channel). If I disconnected that drive I was fine. It
was an old 2 GB so I figured it had died and just
tossed it aside. I didn't have enough space on my
primary drive, so linux had to wait.
Last weekend I bought a shiny new Seagate 160GB
barracuda and installed it as my new primary, putting
my old primary as the slave on the first ide channel.
I figured I'd try linux again since I had all this
free space, and it happened again. I tried the
different boot options and then the box wouldn't boot.
If I unplug the power connector to the second drive,
the box starts. The first time I thought it was the
drive, but when the second died (40GB less than a year
old) I started to think something else was going on.
Has anyone ever heard of something like this? And does
anyone have any idea how to troubleshoot a drive that
seems to prevent the box from booting.
My specs:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo
Athlon 1100
256 mb PC2100
Plextor CD-RW (Master on Channel 2)
Seagate Barracuda 160GB ATA100(Master on Channel 1)
Western Digital 40GB ATA100(was master on Channel 1
the first time, was slave on channel 1 when it died)
And an old 2GB Western Digital that was the slave on
channel 2 until it died in my first attempt.
And a bunch of other stuff that I doubt is relevant,
and is depressingly outdated.
Thanks,
Jason