mjhjmtu

I am trying to install an auxiliary/slave SATA hard drive on an Ubuntu PC. The new drive is 2Tb. I am able to install 1T drives however when I try the new 2T disk, it is not recognised. At first I believed the drive to be at fault and had it replaced. The replacement behaves in the same way making me think there's a system problem/oversight.

In the BIOS, the SATA mode is set to AHCI. The other options are disabled, IDE and RAID mode. The 2tb hdd does not seem to show up in the boot options. Just what I believe is the main drive and the DVD drive.

Could it be that the BIOS or Mother board do not accept 2T HDDs? The mother board is an Asus P8Z68-M Pro and the BIOS version is 0402.

"sudo fdisk -l" shows only the master drive and not the second disk:

Disk /dev/sdb: 931,5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xdd82f21f

Dispositivo Inicializar Start Fim Setores Size Id Tipo
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 1928396799 1928394752 919,5G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 1928398846 1953523711 25124866 12G 5 Estendida
/dev/sdb5 1928398848 1953523711 25124864 12G 82 Linux swap /

lspci returns:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b5)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b5)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev b5)
00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 7 (rev b5)
00:1c.7 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 8 (rev b5)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Z68 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 520] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 HDMI Audio Controller (rev a1)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
04:00.0 PCI bridge: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1083/1085 PCIe to PCI Bridge (rev 01)
05:01.0 Multimedia audio controller: Xilinx Corporation RME Hammerfall DSP (rev 11)
06:00.0 SATA controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1062 Serial ATA Controller (rev 01)
07:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1042 SuperSpeed USB Host Controller

Answer so far, and while I am at it, I'll explain the dmesg a bit:

[ 0.984980] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 6 ports 6 Gbps 0x1c impl SATA mode
[ 0.984986] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: flags: 64bit ncq sntf pm led clo pio slum part ems apst 
[ 0.989635] scsi host0: ahci
[ 0.989751] scsi host1: ahci
[ 0.989842] scsi host2: ahci
[ 0.989979] scsi host3: ahci
[ 0.990083] scsi host4: ahci
[ 0.990176] scsi host5: ahci
[ 0.990228] ata1: DUMMY
[ 0.990229] ata2: DUMMY
[ 0.990233] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfb405000 port 0xfb405200 irq 38
[ 0.990236] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfb405000 port 0xfb405280 irq 38
[ 0.990239] ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfb405000 port 0xfb405300 irq 38
[ 0.990240] ata6: DUMMY

Your first controller (the Intel one), with 6 SATA ports, of which 3 can be used by devices.

[ 0.990382] ahci 0000:06:00.0: SSS flag set, parallel bus scan disabled
[ 0.990426] ahci 0000:06:00.0: AHCI 0001.0200 32 slots 2 ports 6 Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode
[ 0.990430] ahci 0000:06:00.0: flags: 64bit ncq sntf stag led clo pmp pio slum part ccc sxs 
[ 0.990742] scsi host6: ahci
[ 0.990837] scsi host7: ahci
[ 0.990888] ata7: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m512@0xfb200000 port 0xfb200100 irq 39
[ 0.990892] ata8: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m512@0xfb200000 port 0xfb200180 

Your second controller (the ASmedia one), with 2 ports, of which all 2 can used by devices.

Your lscsi output

$ lsscsi
[2:0:0:0] disk ATA ST2000DM006 CC26 /dev/sda
[3:0:0:0] cd/dvd HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS70 EX01 /dev/sr0
[4:0:0:0] disk ATA ST1000NM0011 SN03 /dev/sdb

only shows three devices, is this the complete list? Note that the assignment to sda and sdb need not happen in this order, you can't rely on that. Always look which disk is which before you do anything. There are various ways to tell them apart.

[ 1.294992] ata3: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[ 1.295224] ata3.00: failed to read native max address (err_mask=0x1)
[ 1.295226] ata3.00: HPA support seems broken, skipping HPA handling
[ 1.295229] ata3.00: ATA-8: ST2000DM006, CC26, max UDMA/133
[ 1.295230] ata3.00: 8089950 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
[ 1.295455] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133 (device error ignored)
[ 1.295666] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST2000DM006 CC26 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 1.295830] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 8089950 512-byte logical blocks: (4.14 GB/3.86 GiB)
[ 1.295849] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0

That's the first disk, with reported 4 GB, which is wrong, as there was an error during the command that read the disk size.

This disk continues to give errors through the rest of the dmesg log.

Here is your second disk:

[ 1.296244] ata5: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[ 1.297043] ata5.00: ATA-8: ST1000NM0011, SN03, max UDMA/133
[ 1.297045] ata5.00: 1953525168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
[ 1.297996] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/133

[ 1.327292] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST1000NM0011 SN03 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 1.327494] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/932 GiB)
[ 1.327517] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 1.327605] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 1.327609] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 1.327652] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA

That's the second disk, with 1 TB, it comes up fine, no more errors.

So something is very wrong with the communication between your 2TB disk and the SATA controller: Commands don't work, give wrong results, etc. Try to attach this disk to the other four ports in turn, see if the same thing happens. Try different SATA cables, to see if the cable is damaged. Make sure the contacts are good.

It could be the disk, the controller, or the connection; difficult to say at this stage.

Edit

In the new dmesg, the ports of the first card are assigned differently, and with different port register offsets, which is decidedly odd:

[ 0.969158] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: version 3.0
[ 0.979912] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 6 ports 6 Gbps 0x1b impl SATA mode
[ 0.979919] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: flags: 64bit ncq sntf pm led clo pio slum part ems apst 
[ 0.987156] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfb405000 port 0xfb405100 irq 38
[ 0.987159] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfb405000 port 0xfb405180 irq 38
[ 0.987160] ata3: DUMMY
[ 0.987162] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfb405000 port 0xfb405280 irq 38
[ 0.987165] ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfb405000 port 0xfb405300 irq 38
[ 0.987166] ata6: DUMMY

If the ports are hardwired on the motherboard, it should always be the same assignment. That's odd enough it's worth a bugreport on the kernel development bug tracker list, even if it's correct and they explain you why it is correct. ahci should be fairly standard.

Anyhow, in the second dmesg, the 2 TB disk is correctly recognized and assigned to /dev/sda,

[ 1.292843] ata1.00: ATA-9: ST2000DM006-2DM164, CC26, max UDMA/133
[ 1.292846] ata1.00: 3907029168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
[ 1.294113] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST2000DM006-2DM1 CC26 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 1.294307] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 3907029168 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.82 TiB)
[ 1.294317] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 4096-byte physical blocks
[ 1.294320] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[ 1.294425] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 1.294428] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 1.294456] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support
[ 1.363542] sda: sda1
[ 1.363976] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk

and the partition table is read correctly, and I don't see any further errors. What happens when you try to use it?