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I was trying to add a 6TB WD Red Hard Drive as external storage, but my Ubuntu (18.04.4) could not detect this drive when I plugged it in. I have some confusion about the hardware, so that I used Ubuntu live CD installation disk to format this disk. This 6TB disk was connected to SATA0 of the motherboard (coming with HP Compaq 8000 Elite CMT PC desktop).

The problem is the Live CD could not detect the hard drive before I can format it with GParted (2TB HDD was fine without any problem!) with this message:

No disk drive was detected. If you know the name of the driver needed by your disk drive, you can select it from the list.

Driver needed for your disk drive:
        continue with no disk drive
        login to iSCSI targets
        3w-9xxx
        3w-sas
        3w-xxxx
        ...

I spent some time searching for a solution, turning out that it seems no discussion exactly matching my case except some information that may be related.

1) Possible BIOS setup for the SATA ports, Tested all the 5 ports with the last one as eSATA. None worked.

2) The SATA emulation mode as "IDE/RIAD/ACHI", and I have tried all of them. None worked with the same message.

3) The connection cable may be wrong but I have tried all the ports, and 2TB HDD was always fine without any itch.

What is this problem, and what's the solution? Thanks a lot!

Edited: Because I could not comment any more, added response to heynnema's question here. I do not know how to enable this specific disk to BIOS, although I enabled the external HD drive from the BIOS pull-down menu. My liveDVD is Ubuntu18.04 and, output of sudo dmidecode -s bios-version : 786G7 v01.02

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Yifangt
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  • With a 6TB drive, you first have to lay down a fresh GPT partition table (this will wipe the drive) using gparted, then create ext4 or ntfs partitions. – heynnema Apr 12 '20 at 18:01
  • The OP states the drive is not detected so they can't use gparted. – Organic Marble Apr 12 '20 at 19:14
  • @heynnema Thanks, the drive was even not detected at first. – Yifangt Apr 13 '20 at 14:37
  • re: "the drive was even not detected at first"... did it show up later? Are you connecting this drive internally via a SATA port, or externally via USB? – heynnema Apr 13 '20 at 19:35
  • No, it never showed up. It was internally connected via a SATA port. I have tried all the regular SATA ports (marked with 1,2,3) and the eSATA port. Thanks! @heynnema – Yifangt Apr 14 '20 at 18:35
  • Do you have to enable it in the BIOS? What version of Live DVD/USB were you using? Show me the output of sudo dmidecode -s bios-version. – heynnema Apr 14 '20 at 19:54
  • Status please... – heynnema Apr 21 '20 at 01:13
  • @heynnema Thanks! Still working on it. – Yifangt Apr 22 '20 at 18:19
  • @heynnema Never succeeded! I must missed lots things critical. Thanks again! – Yifangt Oct 01 '21 at 16:02
  • @heynnema Today, I had some issues with my Ubuntu(22.04) that was rebooted with an old Ubuntu18.04 in a separate HD, which detected the 6TB HDD. It turns out the 6TB HDD was already formatted into 3 partitions(1.8TB each) in a format marked with "!". So the problem is with 1) Ubuntu22.04 and the 2) partitions of the 6TB HDD. Problem solved! Left here for a reference. – Yifangt Mar 30 '24 at 20:36
  • @Yifangt Did you format the 6GB drive with a GPT partition table like I suggested back on April 12, 2020? Does the 6TB drive have an external power supply? Did you ever update the BIOS? – heynnema Mar 31 '24 at 00:02
  • @heynnema I did not format the 6TB until it became visible with the old Ubuntu18.04 today; It does not have an external power supply but connected to the motherboard as regular HDD. Then the 3 partitions were reformatted into ext4 file with Gparted in the old Ubuntu 18.04. Reconnected to Ubuntu22.04, the 6TB HDD became available and 3 partitions are there. No, I never update the BIOS which seems to be UEFI instead that I am not sure with, unless the system did the update by itself that I am not aware of. Because it is with UEFI installed in the 500GB SSD, I did not change anything. – Yifangt Mar 31 '24 at 01:39
  • @Yifangt With 18.04 you need to install a GPT partition table (this will wipe the drive). Then recreate the desired partitions. If you didn't install a GPT partition table... and you didn't update the BIOS... why do you come here and ask for help? You're wasting my time, and yours. – heynnema Mar 31 '24 at 01:59
  • I am sorry for wasting your time, but I really did not mean it. A little bit of clarity: both 22.04 and 18.04 have Gparted installed, and it is what I wanted to format the HDD with. The only part is why 6TB HDD was not detected at that time but now. I did not understand. Thank you very much again! – Yifangt Mar 31 '24 at 14:55

1 Answers1

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Your BIOS is outdated at v1.02. A newer BIOS may, or may not, fix your problem with the 6TB HDD.

Note: Perform data backups before any BIOS update.

Note: Update the BIOS at your own risk.

The latest BIOS is 1.14 (or 1.07, depending on how you interpret the HP-ez). See (you must select the Windows 7 64-bit OS):

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-compaq-8000-elite-convertible-minitower-pc/4065889

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Software-and-How-To-Questions/No-BIOS-Updates/td-p/6650782

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp73501-74000/sp73578.exe

heynnema
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