How to format a hard drive from bios setting

smurfcastle2009

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May 9, 2011
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I have a hard drive that i want to format and i am trying to install linux 11.04 on it but it tell me that i dont have 4.4 GB of HDD space and a 20 GB HD but it i have tried doing the try Ubuntu thing but its not finding the hard drive that is connected to the computer. and i know that it is supposed to find the hard drive cause i formatted another hard drive but it wasnt big enough to install linux. but anyways i need some help please i have really tried everything im about to throw it out. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
 

crazyhype646

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This is what i wanted to know too. i have installed openSUSE 11.4 alongside windows 7. but im not comfortable with Linux. so im planning to perform a full format and reinstall win7. but the problem is, win7 gives a quick format only. i think its not a gud idea to reisntall win7 on a quick formatted drive as i had installed Linux too. is there any way to perform a full formatting while installation? or should i look for any third party software for full formatting?
 

COLGeek

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This is a different issue. You need to start a new thread.
 

COLGeek

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When you boot from the Ubuntu CD, are you trying to install directly from the CD or from the Live version? Unless you are trying to resize an existing partition and preserve another OS, when you get to the disk options portion of the install, Ubuntu will give you an option to use the entire disk. That will format the HDD and give you all the space you need.

Please clarify.
 

smurfcastle2009

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ok so i have tried to install it from the live version on the CD and the CD pop up menu when i put the disk in. i dont want to preserve another OS i just want to install ubuntu and get it over with and another thing is that i cant even get the partition part of the installation, it wont let me get past the part where it says i need 4.4 GB of space an active internet connection. but the hard drive that i want to install it on wont come up in the Bios or if do the live version and i dont know why because it has Zorin OS installed on it but i cant do anything until i can get the drive to be recognized by the Bios do you have some advice on that if soo please help and i do have a developers version of XP Pro Edition and i can install it but i crashes a lot but do you think that it has to do with the bios not being up to date or what??? please help anything is better than nothing i mean i do realize that i might have to get another hard drive but i want to try everything before i have to spend money.. do you understand what i am saying.?????
 

COLGeek

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If the PC won't recognize the HDD in the BIOS, then you are out of luck. Verify that the data and power connections are firmly (and properly) attached to the hard drive itself.

Looking at the capacity you referred to in your original post, I assume you have older IDE types of hard drives. IDE drives and cables will allow you to connect to drives to a single cable. When that is the case, one drive must be the "master" and the other the "slave". These settings are configured with jumper blocks on the HDD. You can also set both to the "cable select" or "CS" setting and the system will configure them for you. Still requires jumper blocks in the proper position on the hard drive.

Check those and let me know the results.
 

smurfcastle2009

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well i have set the jumpers to master and slave and sorry i forgot about this but the bios does recognize the 20 gig that have but when i try to boot up the CD it freezes im sorry about that but anyways what it does when it freezes it it gets stuck at a blinking line screen abd it wont do anything after that i have to do a hard shut down. and another thing that i was wondering about is that when i put another hard drive in it tells me that its starting nVidia boot agent and tells me that the boot test failed and to check the cable what does that even mean
 

COLGeek

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That nVidia boot test error is because an issue is detected with the on-board nVidia network controller (like a missing cable). You can disable that warning in your BIOS.

So, I assume you have 2 HDDs on one IDE cable and a CD-ROM on a second IDE cable. Is that correct?
 

smurfcastle2009

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it is set as the master but i have also been told that all i need to do is have a drive set a master and a drive set as slave and install the XP version that i have and then install the Ubuntu onto the slave drive sooo is there anything that would be conflicting
 

rowchamp

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