[SOLVED] eSATA connected disk not appearing on RHEL 4 server

Vanyel · 04-14-2009, 04:43 PM

I have a Dell Poweredge server running RHEL 4. I installed a SIIG eSATA II-50 PCI card in it today and hooked up a LaCie 4big, 2tb RAID.

On boot I can tell that the card is working. One of the POST messages shows the 2-channel card and mentions that port 0 has the LaCie array connected. So at least at that basic level, everything's fine. I also see a line in lspci output to the effect of

Quote:

01:0c.0 SATA controller: Initio Corporation INI-1623 PCI SATA-II Controller (rev 02)

which is the only thing that could be my card. There is no other sata controller.

the problem is that once I'm booted, there's nothing in /dev to correspond to the array. 'ls /dev/sd*' shows me the other six drives in the system, sda - sdf, and nothing else. Looking at everything in /dev, there's nothing that looks like it could be a reference to the drive.

I'm not sure where to go from here to get the OS to recognize the array.

Anyone have an answer?

santana · 04-15-2009, 09:26 AM

I did similar on Dell T5400, but esata raid directly connected to mobo. (not sure of dell bios terminology here) I had to tell the bios to "enable" the drive, it was off by default, even though post would show it. May not be you issue, just tossing it out there.

Vanyel · 04-15-2009, 04:45 PM

Thanks. I did check my bios before posting and didn't see anything like that in there, but I need to go back in anyway since I discovered my predecessor left a bios setup password that I'll have to pull a jumper to disable (I can see settings, but not modify anything, even if I had seen a setting like what you describe).

Crito · 04-15-2009, 08:30 PM

The eSATA connector is different but the wiring is the same as an internal SATA drive, straight through. To the controller there's no difference.

Code:

fdisk -l

is the CLI command to list drives and partitions BTW. gparted/qtparted are GUI versions of fdisk.

santana · 04-16-2009, 08:09 AM

If you can't see anything with fdisk, it kind of sounds like a driver issue with your card. You'll have to have the "sata_inic162x" module installed/loaded in your kernel. A post I found says this is included in the kernel from 2.6.21 on. You might want to verify your kernel is at least this new:

Code:

uname -a

and make sure the module is loaded on your system:

Code:

modprobe -l | grep -i sata

On the other hand as Crito's post mention essentially eSata is compatible with sata, beside the connector and hot swap capability they are the same as far as I know. You could simply do away with the card and instead put a esata bracket (for like 3$ from new egg) instead. The down side is the hot swap safety, I think it's highly unlikely but I'd hate to think that I could accidentally zap my mobo with a static discharge or something.

Vanyel · 04-17-2009, 10:26 AM

I updated my kernel and now it's newer than what you described and still the same problem exists.

fdisk -l shows nothing of my array.

The modprobe command yields this:

Quote:

van@mailserver ~]$ modprobe -l | grep -i sata

/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_mv.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_nv.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_promise.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_qstor.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_sil.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_sil24.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_sis.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_svw.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_sx4.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_uli.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_via.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.9-78.0.17.ELsmp/kernel/drivers/ata/sata_vsc.ko

santana · 04-17-2009, 10:34 AM

Your modprobe -l show that you don't have sata_inic162x.ko which is the needed driver for your card. That's likely the problem. If you can find the module somewhere on your system you can simply load it with modprobe, otherwise you need to compile it first.

Vanyel · 04-17-2009, 10:58 AM

Okay. I'm trying to see if it's on my system. While I check, do you have a suggestion for a source to get sata_inic162x.ko if it's not there? Searching Red Hat's site yields nothing, and a google of "where can I find sata_inic162x.ko?" isn't yielding anything useful so far.

Vanyel · 04-17-2009, 11:09 AM

I notice a REHL5 system I have has sata_inic162x.ko. Is it as simple as copying the file over and using modprobe to load it?

santana · 04-17-2009, 12:24 PM

I'm not sure, I don't know enough about the kernel to answer. My sense is that it's probably not going to work, and "bad things" might happen.

santana · 04-17-2009, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanyel

do you have a suggestion for a source to get sata_inic162x.ko if it's not there?

I got my info from here...

http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/SATA_INIC162X.html

but I don't know how good a source this is.

Vanyel · 04-20-2009, 11:36 AM

Alas the problem is my SIIG eSATA II-150 PCI controller. I thought it would work with linux, but it won't and the company confirmed this. I'm going to return the card and go with a SYBA http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816124013 . It lists linux as a supported OS (I'm e-mailing the company for confirmation just in case). Then I can finally GET ON with the actual project this is for. Thanks for the help everybody.

- Van

Floyd Davidson · 08-25-2010, 09:43 AM

An interesting thread.

I have a Dell PowerEdge 6650 running Slackware Linux (kernel 2.6.29.6)and had a heck of a time finding a SATA card that would work. I currently have a "SIIG eSATA II-150 PCI i/e" card that will work in either a PCI-X slot or the one PCI slot.

Apparently that description is used for more than one card though. The card I have has one internal and one external port. Others may have the same description but for example have two external ports. They probably are otherwise internally the same. They all identify, with lspci, as a Initio Corp INI-1623 PCI SATA-II Controller.

The required driver is enabled (I use "make xconfig" to change the kernel config, but other config options should describe it the same) by disabling SATA support under "Device Drivers -> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL" (it is marked as "depricated").

Then enable "Device Drivers -> Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers". That produces another list of options, where "ATA SFF support" should be enabled, and under that "Initio 162x SATA support" should be enabled.

Do a "make clean", then recompile the entire kernel plus modules and install both. (The exact method for that varies with different distributions.)

I tried half a dozen different SATA cards before finding that the SIIG card would work. Some of the cards simply were not recognized by the PCI bus (a common thing with Dell's PowerEdge servers), and those with a Silicon Image sil3124 chip would be available on the bus, but the driver bombs.

Floyd Davidson · 10-02-2010, 01:29 AM

To follow up on the previous message, and record this where goggle can find it, a bit more information. I now have a fully loaded PE6650. Here's what I found that works:

eSATA: Any of the SIIG sSATA-II 150 PCI cards.
Audio: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1
USB 2: SIIG 2 port or 4 port cards
Video: ATI Radeon 9250 256MB PCI Video Card DM-R9250PCI-D3
Firewire: Ratoc Systems PCIFW2 two port (meant for an Apple)
Ethernet: INTEL PRO/1000 MT DUAL PORT PCI-X NIC C41421-003

The video card is in the single PCI slot, the others all function
in PCI-X slots.

Network cards from 3Com, Broadcom, and IBM did not work. A GeForce 6200 video card did not work, and I have quite a pile of SATA, Firewire, and USB cards that would not work.