linux-kernel - Re: Drives missing at boot

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Message-ID: <AANLkTikPsRvvpSZirSygnZqyGKcS-Bz0eVeASZZqvZwH@mail.gmail.com>
Date:	Sat, 3 Jul 2010 12:57:44 -0700
From:	Mark Knecht <markknecht@...il.com>
To:	Stan Hoeppner <stan@...dwarefreak.com>
Cc:	Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
	Linux Kernel List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-ide@...r.kernel.org" <linux-ide@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Drives missing at boot

On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 12:42 PM, Stan Hoeppner <stan@...dwarefreak.com> wrote:
> Mark Knecht put forth on 7/3/2010 2:21 PM:
>
>> Note two things:
>>
>> 1) All the drives are always reported by BIOS at boot time. Now, that
>> doesn't guarantee that the drives spin up. It may only mean they can
>> be read by BIOS, but they are there as far as I can tell. They show up
>> in the boot screens and in BIOS itself if I drop in to play with
>> settings.
>
> I missed that.  I thought I read it was both.  My bad.
>

Not a problem. It's good to be as clear as possible for all involved.

>> QUESTION: There are some settings in BIOS for delaying the drive. (Or
>> something. I'm using the machine and not in BIOS) There were settings
>> from 0 to 35 seconds if I remember correctly. Possibly I should try
>> setting each drive to a different value to different value to stagger
>> power up?
>
> If that PSU meets published specs you shouldn't need delayed spin up with
> those 5 drives.
>

I've not dropped into BIOS yet as the machine is in use but from the
Asus manual it appears the delay is not on a drive by drive basis so I
don't think I can do much there.

>> If you need more info or have other ideas please let me know.
>
> Your answers here should have pretty much eliminated hardware issues as the
> cause, unless that particular mobo has BIOS or other issues I'm unaware of.
>
> I've found it's always best to ask about hardware with this kind of report
> just to eliminate possibilities.  All that gear is good quality stuff.  If the
> problem is due to hardware, it's because one of your components is defective,
> but we don't see evidence of that at this point.
>
> Also, TTBOMK, if a SATA drive motor doesn't spin up, the drive firmware won't
> report the drive as ready upstream, thus the BIOS won't list the drive.

An off-list response suggested possibly setting some drive jumpers on
non-boot drives to power up in standby. Apparently the kernel will
then spin up those drives later? If I cannot stagger the drives in
BIOS then I will likely try that. Technically I guess I only need
/boot on sda to get the kernel booted. The mdadm RAID1 on sda/sdb/sdc
could start slightly later, and technically the RAID0 on sdd/sde could
start very late as there are only VMWare images on that drive.

Cheers,
Mark
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