Asrock Pro4 MoBo Issues w/ Linux Live Media

[Essence_of_War]

In the past I've typically used Gnome Partition Editor for partitioning/formatting, and TeraByte's Image for Linux to do back-ups, even though I'm principally a windows7 user.

When I put together my new computer, I'm able to install and boot into windows7 easily, but when I try to boot from my live cds for either Gparted or TBImage, both of them hang without booting. I'm fairly sure the optical drive isn't the problem because I used it to install drivers for the MoBo, GPU, and a wireless adapter.

My new MoBo is an Asrock Pro4 w/ UEFI, could this be causing a problem? If so, any ideas how I can solve it? I really like GParted and TBImage so I'd prefer if the solution wasn't "use something else"

 

[mfenn]

Can you post dmesg output?

 

[Essence_of_War]

I cannot because as I can't get to a terminal from either program, and in fact, cannot install Ubuntu.

I updated the UEFI BIOS to P1.70 which added a security option to disable secure boot. I have been unable to either try, or install the latest secure-boot-enabled Ubuntu versions w/ secure boot either enabled or disabled in UEFI.

I'm pretty confused

 

[Essence_of_War]

Just in case it wasn't clear, I can get to the GUI where Ubuntu asks if you'd like to "Try Ubuntu w/o installing" or "Install Ubuntu", but both choices end up hanging in all cases.

 

[mfenn]

Are you able to make selections from the boot menu? Like press up, down, enter, etc? If so, select the "Try Ubuntu w/o installing" option, press e to enter edit mode, select the kernel line and press enter. Delete anything like "quiet" or "splash". Then press enter to save that and b to boot. You should then see the normal kernel boot messages go past.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Doing that now, I'm seeing some boot messages.

It looks like it's hanging at:


33.975155] ata7: hard resetting link


Is that a hard disk failure?

 

[Essence_of_War]

It appears to be a sata3 problem.

I reconnected my optical drive to a sata2 port and everything seems to be fine. I'm able to boot into tbimage, gparted, and try linux, and I'm presently installing linux.

I don't really understand why it worked. Maybe a driver/controller problem with linux?

 

[Steltek]

The Z77 Pro4 has two different pairs of SATA3 ports -- one pair is provided by the Intel Z77 chipset, while the 2nd pair is provided by an Asmedia 1061 chipset. I believe the Asmedia ports are the two located near the DIMM slots, just below the ATX power connector.

Did you have the optical drive plugged into the Intel SATA3 port or the Asmedia SATA3 port? If you had them plugged into the Asmedia port this could have been the issue (i.e. Asmedia SATA3 ports suck).

 

[mfenn]

The Z77 Pro4 has two different pairs of SATA3 ports -- one pair is provided by the Intel Z77 chipset, while the 2nd pair is provided by an Asmedia 1061 chipset. I believe the Asmedia ports are the two located near the DIMM slots, just below the ATX power connector.

Did you have the optical drive plugged into the Intel SATA3 port or the Asmedia SATA3 port? If you had them plugged into the Asmedia port this could have been the issue (i.e. Asmedia SATA3 ports suck).

This is what I'm thinking as well. The kernel tries to hard reset the ATA link when it's not getting the responses that it expects. Since you're booting from CD, nothing will work if the SATA link to the optical drive doesn't work.

The Z77 Pro4 has 8 SATA ports, so ata7 would be the second ASMedia port. They're pretty bad. OP, if you really need to use them, you might try swapping the ASMedia ports from AHCI to IDE mode (or vice versa) and seeing if that helps. Best solution is to just avoid them though.

BTW, this is an example of why Linux is awesome. It tells you what it's trying to do and why it failed. Imagine trying to get Windows to tell you this! :awe:

 

[Essence_of_War]

Steltek and mfenn,

That explains a lot!

Inded, I had plugged my HDD and my Optical drive into the AsMedia Sata3 ports, the ones near the power connector, just because they seemed to be closer and more convenient to reach cables to

The HDD seems to be fine so far, the SSD is plugged into one of the non-asmedia sata3 ports and it is also working fine. I'm thinking I might move the HDD connection just to stay away from what appears to be a very unreliable connection.

BTW, this is an example of why Linux is awesome. It tells you what it's trying to do and why it failed. Imagine trying to get Windows to tell you this!

Indeed, after spending a little effort trying to figure out what it was telling me, I was sure glad that it told me SOMETHING rather than windows' typical response