Trying to upgrade an old pentium board to support SATA

I'm trying to upgrade my P6pro server running slackware 12 with a sata host controller card. the expansion card shows up in lspci but dosen't recognize the 1.5TB hard disk i've attached to it. Do i need to compile a kernel module to enable this card?

I would imagine you need a driver of some kind to recognize the pci card, it might be you just need to load sata drivers, or SCSI drivers maybe I don't know the only other thing is can your BIOS recognize the whole 1.5TB drive?

Hi,

Originally Posted by Sm0k3 I'm trying to upgrade my P6pro server running slackware 12 with a sata host controller card. the expansion card shows up in lspci but dosen't recognize the 1.5TB hard disk i've attached to it. Do i need to compile a kernel module to enable this card?

What is the card that you are using? You say your card shows up 'lspci -vv'. Post the information. Which kernel are you using with Slackware 12? Stock or custom?

root@futurenet:~# uname -r
2.6.21.5-smp

and:

root@futurenet:~# lspci -vv
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440FX - 82441FX PMC [Natoma] (rev 02)
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort+ >SERR- <PERR+
        Latency: 32

00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 ISA [Natoma/Triton II] (rev 01)
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle+ MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 0

00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371SB PIIX3 IDE [Natoma/Triton II] (prog-if 80 [Master])
        Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 32
        Region 0: [virtual] Memory at 000001f0 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=8]
        Region 1: [virtual] Memory at 000003f0 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=1]
        Region 2: [virtual] Memory at 00000170 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=8]
        Region 3: [virtual] Memory at 00000370 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=1]
        Region 4: I/O ports at ff80 [size=16]

00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] 79c970 [PCnet32 LANCE] (rev 16)
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 56 (1500ns min, 63750ns max)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 5
        Region 0: I/O ports at ff20 [size=32]
        Region 1: Memory at ffbeb800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 10080000 [disabled] [size=64K]

00:0f.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA 1064SG [Mystique] (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping+ SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 32
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
        Region 0: Memory at ff000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=8M]
        Region 1: Memory at ffbec000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Region 2: Memory at fe000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 10090000 [disabled] [size=64K]

00:11.0 RAID bus controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3512 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3512 SATARaid Controller
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR+
        Latency: 32, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 10
        Region 0: I/O ports at ffe0 [size=8]
        Region 1: I/O ports at ffac [size=4]
        Region 2: I/O ports at ffa0 [size=8]
        Region 3: I/O ports at ffa8 [size=4]
        Region 4: I/O ports at ff90 [size=16]
        Region 5: Memory at f7bebc00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 10000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-

00:13.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 05)
        Subsystem: Creative Labs CT4790 SoundBlaster PCI512
        Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 24 (500ns min, 5000ns max)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 9
        Region 0: I/O ports at ff40 [size=32]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

00:13.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! Game Port (rev 05)
        Subsystem: Creative Labs Gameport Joystick
        Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 32
        Region 0: I/O ports at fff0 [size=8]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

I am lead to believe that with a host controller, the limitation of the bios being aable to see the drive would no longer be a factor?

The card, which is listed under the HCL is a:
Koutech PSA150 Dual Channel Serial ATA PCI Host Controller
The folks that rated this card said it worked straight out of the box, but it dosent for me. keep in mind my motherboard in question makes dinosaurs look young.

A suggestion...

A controller card has its own BIOS that takes control after the motherboard BIOS has found the card, that is if it has a driver, as you say that this card should have in linux.

I would try to use one of the newer linux live-cds to try to find out if it is a question of the linux kernel not loading a driver module for the card or if it is that the motherboard BIOS will not pick up the card.

You might look at the BIOS setting to see if there is an item for a PnP OS(Plug and Play) and have it activated, as well looking at any other settings regarding a PCI bus. You might have to play around some if you are able, noting all the BIOS settings beforehand, so you can return to your starting point. Is there any such thing as a later BIOS for this motherboard? Good Luck

The thing that irks me most about this, the stock slackware 12 kernel has the driver that this host controller card needs (Silicon Image Chipset Support) built into the kernel. The host controller shows up in lspci as posted above. However, there is no /dev/sdX so i can't mount my new hard disk and use it. The siimage.c included with this sata host controller card predates the siimage.c that comes with my distro's kernel source.

I'll try downloading the latest kernel source and building a custom kernel. If this don't work, i'll try searching for a motherboard BIOS upgrade, though i'm sure this mobo is unsupported.

I do not think...

I would not count on the card being recognized unless the BIOS will find it as a Plug and Play device and allow the kernel module to load. Again, Good Luck