I went home and lunchtime and tested it, worked a treat. I left it running gparted formatting the whole drive as EXT3 when I came away. I'm so chuffed its working!
Once again sorry for posting about a hardware issue but I guess it is relevant to linux users in that the new drive required a firmware update to force it to work at the required speed to work in the POST section of the raid controller boot process (and thererfore in Ubuntu) whereas if the same drive on the same controller is hotplugged into windows (bypassing POST detection hang) it managed to work. Incidentally I also hotplugged it into ubuntu ATFER the firmware update just to see if ubuntu likes hotplug sata and it worked a treat. So the moral of the story is, if you get a new samsung sata drive and want to run it on an (slightly) older mother board like mine with sata1 support only (up to 1.5Gbps) then you need to download a utility from samsungHdd.com and connect it to a newer (sata 2) controller and flash it accordingly (there is a utility to flash it back to sata2 if required also). I would have prefered the older pin and jumper method for backward compatibility but there you go. Hope this helps. Regards Richard 2009/12/30 Richard Forth <richard.fo...@gmail.com> > Actually, I spoke to IT Support here at work, we used one of their > new computers with internal sata drives and the samsung software we used > said it has successfully knocked it down to 1.5Gbps so I'm hoping this is it > > . I can't wait now to get home and try it out. > > In defence of samsung, despite my criticisms, the drives are now supposed > to be able to negotiate the interface speed on the fly, so it could just be > down to shortcomings in the negotiating capabilities of the controllers I > have (guess I wo'nt be sending them into any hostage situations just yet), > but it does seem silly that in order to "force" it to be backward compatible > I need a sata II controller to do it. > > Will let you all know how it goes tonight. > > In fact sod it I might nip home at lunchtime!! > > LOL > > Regards > > Richard > > > 2009/12/30 Andy Taylor <andy...@gmail.com> > > Hi, >> >> If you have no joy at PC World etc - im happy for you to bring your >> drive here and I can downgrade it for you. Im in Whittlesey. >> >> Andy >> >> On 30/12/2009 11:57, Richard Forth wrote: >> > Well, this just gets better and better, the more i read into this >> > problem the more stupid it sounds, for example, take my existing sata >> > drives, they sensibly have a pin-out on the back to which you can set >> > jumpers to say "limit this drive to 1.5Gbps transfer rate", which is >> > great because my motherboard only supports 1.5Gbps Sata (or SATA1). >> > The option therefore to uprate the speed to Sata II is simply to >> > remove the jumper. >> > On this new drive, the transfer rate needs to be done via software if >> > the drive fails to negotiate the speed automatically with the >> > controller (Mobo Sata says "No Device" as startup so i assume thats a >> > failure.). >> > The problem being is (and heres were it gets silly) to DOWNRATE the >> > transfer speed you need to connect it to a motherboard that supports >> > the Full 3.0Gbps (Sata II) standard - because obviously if the >> > controller can't detect the drive, the software provided by Samsung >> > isnt going to be able to work , haha. >> > Three options remain: >> > Go to PC World (I'm off at lunch to try this) speak to the "tech guys" >> > and see if they will do the honours for me and downrate it to 1.5Gbps >> > compulsory with the samsung software >> > Get a new motherboard that supports SATA II and socket 478 processors, >> > but means i need a new GFX card also becuase the new Mobo's all use >> > PCI-E instead of AGP >> > Get a PCI SATA II raid Card (so far all searches reveal these are >> > PCI-E so will also need number 2 above, in which case number 2 might >> > be the only option as my current Mobo does not support PCI-E). >> > Sorry for going off- topic with this it was supposed to be why it >> > worked in Windows and not in ubuntu. this is so annoying because the >> > drive "works" using teh PCI sata-raid card provided I unplug it at the >> > bois level and then hotplug the drive once windows is loaded. >> > The whole point of this was to have the new 1Tb drive mounted on >> > ubuntu as EXT3, but for some reason because the drive fails >> > negotiation at the bios level with the sata raid card, it all falls >> > over in a heap, there must be something in the windows driver that >> > allows it to negotiate successfully. >> > I'm off to PC-World in a few minutes to see if they will knock the >> > drive down to 1.5gbps for me, otherwise its a new mobo and graphics >> > card for me! joy! >> > Will report back this afternoon >> > >> > >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peterboro mailing list >> Peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk >> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro >> > >
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