linux-kernel - Re: SATA/IDE Dual Mode w/Intel 945 Chipset or HOW TO LIQUIFY a flash IDE chip under 2.6.18

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Message-ID: <45A4325C.9060902@garzik.org>
Date:	Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:25:00 -0500
From:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
To:	"Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey@...fmountaingroup.com>
CC:	Linux kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: SATA/IDE Dual Mode w/Intel 945 Chipset or HOW TO LIQUIFY a flash
 IDE chip under 2.6.18

Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
>> Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I just finished pulling out a melted IDE flash drive out of a Shuttle 
>>> motherboard with the intel 945 chipset which claims to support
>>> SATA and IDE drives concurrently under Linux 2.6.18.
>>>
>>> The chip worked for about 30 seconds before liquifying in the 
>>> chassis.  I note that the 945 chipset in the shuttle PC had some serious
>>> issues recognizing 2 x SATA devices and a IDE device concurrently.   
>>> Are there known problems with the Linux drivers
>>> with these newer chipsets.
>>>
>>> One other disturbing issue was the IDE flash drive was configured 
>>> (and recognized) as /dev/hda during bootup, but when
>>> it got to the root mountint, even with root=/dev/hda set, it still 
>>> kept thinking the drive was at scsi (ATA) device (08,13)
>>> and kept crashing with VFS cannot find root FS errors.
>>
>>
>> We have two sets of ATA drivers now, and Intel motherboards support 
>> bazillion annoying IDE modes, so you will need to provide more info 
>> than this.
>>
>> Is the motherboard in combined mode?
> 
> 
> Yes.  "Enhanced mode" is how it is listed in the BIOS.

Combined mode is a technical term.  Judging from your answers, you are 
not using combined mode.

>> native mode?  AHCI or RAID mode?
> 
> No RAID, just enhanced mode (SATA 3.0 + IDE)

Judging from your answers, you are not in AHCI mode.

Side note:  You should use AHCI if available.  Emulating a PATA 
interface for SATA devices is error prone [in the silicon].  AHCI is 
native SATA, "enhanced mode" is not.

>> The cannot-find-root-FS errors are definitely caused by driver and/or 
>> initrd misconfiguration.  The melted flash, I dunno, maybe you managed 
>> to get two drivers fighting over the same hardware.
> 
> No.  Seems related to the chipset problems.  If I say "root=/dev/hda2" I 
> have better not be getting errors claiming device 08:13 could not mount 
> as root.  memory corruption?

If the kernel cannot mount the requested root= disk, it tries the 
default that is encoded into the vmlinuz image at build time, which is 
probably 08:13.

> The melted flash seems power related (like pin 20 was live for some 
> reason on a standard IDE).

Probably, otherwise we would have many more reports like this than just 
yours.

	Jeff

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