(SOLVED) Zorin usb installer cant detect laptop hard drive

Hi there. Ive been searching this forum for a solution to my problem but couldnt find any so here goes...

My wife has an Emachine 250 netbook with WinXP installed. The netbook is an Atom N270 with 1 GB memory and 160 GB hard drive.

I tried installing Zorin to her netbook using Universal USB Installer but it said not enough disk space. I tried the first option (live usb) from the menu and it booted fine. While in Zorin I looked for the hard drive in the files explorer but it wasnt there.

Has anyone experienced this before? Is there a work-around? Thanks...!

When you boot into zorin using the live USB, open terminal and post back the result of the following command:

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

hi, this is what came up

Code:

live@live:~$ sudo fdisk -l


Disk /dev/sda: 4279 MB, 4279238656 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 520 cylinders, total 8357888 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x001e5594

   
Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/sda1   *          63     8357887     4178912+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

by the way, im using a 4 GB flash drive.

hmmm. It only sees your 4gb USB stick.

Try this.
Go to your BIOS settings. (Do you know how to do that?).
Find the "Onboard Devices Settings". Set the "SATA Mode" to AHCI. (It is probably set either to "SATA" or "IDE". Change it to "AHCI".
Save, exit and then try again to install Zorin. You could firstly boot into Zorin using the live USB, and run again the command

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

to check if this time your HD is being recognized.


If not, run in terminal the command

Code:

sudo os-prober

Do you get any error message?
If yes, it might mean that there are some Dmraid leftovers.
In this case run in terminal

Code:

sudo apt-get remove dmraid

Just in case, keep a backup of any important files you may have.

After you run the above command, try again to install Zorin and see if your HD is recognized.

yeah its set to IDE alright. the installer can finally see my hard drive and im installing zorin now. thank you very much for your help madvinegar!

Very glad I helped my friend!
Thanx Swarf!

zorin is great. my wife's netbook runs like the wind now, unlike before with WinXP, booting takes a very long time. thanks again!