Thanks for the responses, gentlemen.

@male

Start the Live CD. ... Open a terminal. ... Will they root and show the commands:

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blkid -c /dev/null -o list
parted -l
fdisk -l -u -c

Thanks for the tip and the code, male. I can do that.

@DeepDayze

DeepDayze wrote:these messages:

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[ 14.640095] ata1:SRST failed [errno = -16]
[ 24.652096] ata1:SRST failed [errno = -16]

may mean there's a problem in initializing the disk, as the disk is seen but can't be accessed. Probably disk failing?

Thanks. I wonder too. We'll know soon, I hope. It was working okay before the switch from XP, but maybe so.. maybe dead or dying.

@fatmac

fatmac wrote:Have you tried a different ribbon cable with that drive(?).

Ordered two new PATA cables. Will check this out.

@Roky

rokytnji wrote:If you look at my screenshots hank. That Desktop Emachine came out of a dumpster with a 8 gig drive in it.

Because of the price I paid for the Emachine. $0.00. I decided a 320 gig maxtor and 125 gig toshiba

320=US $18.00=used drive

125=US $24.88=new drive

was worth it to me as well as putting in a wireless pcie G card in it also for 9 bucks.
Bumped the ram from 512 MB to 2 gig also.
which was a (US $9.99)

All that did was cramp my beer budget a bit but it makes a heck of a media center and wireless test box in the motrcycle shop.
As well as a play toy for the guys that hang out once in a while in my shop on the week ends.
So A grand total of 62.88.

It is not a swinging dog d__k deal but I did this back when computer parts were more pricey than they are now.
Plus. I live way in the alternate universe part of the world where my place is"A geographical oddity!"

That's fantastic, being able to do all that with so little. This 15 year old PC is maxed out at 433MHz and 512MB Ram. No racehorse, but it is running Linux at the prompt just fine and has given me UNIX back. I'm so glad I didn't trash it.

@thriftee

thriftee wrote:Were both of these drives previously use in this particular machine with this particular cable before?

Some IDE ribbon cables are not keyed. Disconnect the Maxtor just to be safe, and try and see if the cable fits on the Fujitsu flipped around the other way. If it fits, try bring it up that way. Generally, if its not marked or markings molded into the plastic on the connector (use a magnifier to look closely), there usually is a stripe on the side where pin #1 is and pin #1 should be marked on the drive.

Once you get the system to recognize the Fujitsu by itself, then check jumpers and reconnect the Maxtor.

Thanks, thriftee. I have two new PATA cables on the way. The two drives were working perfectly together in the old XP environment just before I blew MS away and loaded MX-14.3. But I did notice that the drives were reversed on the cable. Slave at end, master/boot HDD in the middle. So, I will order them properly when the cables arrive. May also play with cable select jpr settings.

Thanks again, everyone. I will report back here as it unfolds in the coming days.

Greetings, everyone.

And thank you. I think we can tie the ribbons on this issue and mark it "SOLVED".

I replaced the 80 conductor ribbon cable with the two drives ordered correctly, reconnecting the parked, suspect drive. Same error"...-16". Then switched to"cable select" jumper configuration both drives. Same result.

Next I removed 10GB Fujitsu drive, replaced it with a"new-to-me" $12 WD 160GB drive. I used WD's"alternate jumper configuration" for old PCs, guessing that my old PC might not be able to recognize 160GB. Came up without drive error messages, and it recognized 150 GB. Formatted it, partitioned it with one partition, mounted it, loaded a copy of all my boot drive's home directory stuff onto it. Works fine.

But I have to have root permission to mount and use that second disk. It's okay, but that was a surprise. Now I have to learn how to fix that.. maybe set some permissions or some such.

I'm very appreciative for your help.

Something like this, (as root or sudo): Where <user> is your username, <group> is your users group, & <mountpoint> is where the disk is mounted.

So I guess the old 10gb drive got hosed somehow so that's why you had issues with it. Good you got it working now.