Diagnosing fdisk: can't open '/dev/sda'

[John A]

I have replaced my failing Seagate pipeline HD 2 500GB disk with another identical disk running the same firmware SC13 on the disk controller. However the second disk is not visible to the humax firmware/kernel.

humax# fdisk -l
humax# fdisk /dev/sda
fdisk: can't open '/dev/sda'
humax#

Both disks work normally when connected to a laptop (running ubuntu); I can manage the petitions and I can run smartcl to access SMART statistics and run diagnostics.

How do I enable and view the messages generated during Humax start up. Normally on linux, I would use dmesg and I can see messages like:

[    3.101388] ata1: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)

thanks.

 

[Black Hole]

You have presumably already tried simply formatting it from the Humax menus?

 

[John A]

Yes I have. It just hangs for an hour and I have to switch off the Humax. I have also loaded the custom firmware and ran fix-disk which reports 'unable to find a disk' as below:

Please select option: 1
Any additional options (or press return for none):
Are you sure you wish to run the hard disk checker? [Y/N] y
Running /bin/fix-disk
Custom firmware version 3.00

Unable to find a disk

Press return to continue:

 

[Black Hole]

Check the jumper settings on the drive.

 

[John A]

Good idea. According to the Seagate manual, the only jumper is for speed negotiation and it does say add a jumper if the drive is not detected. I have done this which reduces the SATA speed from 3Gbps to 1.5 Ggps but sadly it's still not working. Interestingly when I connect the drive to the laptop it negotiates to run at 1.5 Gbps whereas the other failing drive connects at 3Gbps. I have no idea whether this is significant.