GC-RAMDISK not seen by Linux

Hi All,

First time lurker/poster/newb.

Using an Asus A8N-VM CSM. sata_nv works fine for SATA.

I'm kind of stumped as to why my GC-RAMDISK (Gigabyte i-RAM rev 1.2) isn't even seen by Linux. (Tried FC4, FC4.2 respin, FC5 test2 and SuSE 10.0, and Kanotix) It's seen just fine by the BIOS, and in XP sp2 it works great. FYI: It doesn't need a driver, it's just a SATA (1) device.

I've also got a 74gb raptor (sata), and it's seen fine by the chipset (all dists). Also tried swapping to the port to which the HD was on, no dice. Also fiddled hopelessly w/RAID in BIOS (fakeraid, in case _something_ was seen by Linux), and that didn't pan out either.

FYI: I'm just trying to install linux, and when I say "not seen", means that it isn't displayed as an option to install to.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Try to install your favorite distro on a "real" harddisk.
Try to acess the i-RAM drive from the installed distro.

Thanks for the response. Yup, I've installed FC4.2 on the raptor, and everything hums along just tickety-boo.

Also tried checking from installed FC4.2.

Also went down the train of thought that perhaps this acts more like the sata CDROMs that everyone seems to be having trouble with. Tried hacking libata.h, including deprecated modules (some have had success again w/CDROMs), still going..

What does dmesg show?

What does fdisk -l prints out?

Sorry, on my laptop right now, I'll run the dmesg's tomorrow. fdisk only shows my boot, swap, and root partitions (on the raptor).

Also tried the card in my Asus A8V (on both the promise and via channels, so sata_promise and sata_via) with FC 5 test 2, same as before. I'll run dmesg on the systems/combinations tomorrow and post them.

Sorry for the delay.

fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 74.3 GB, 74355769344 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9039 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 33 265041 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 34 164 1052257+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 165 9039 71288437+ 83 Linux



dmesg:
Linux version 2.6.15.2 (root@localhost.localdomain) (gcc version 4.0.2 20051125 (Red Hat 4.0.2-8)) #2 Fri Feb 3 22:42:27 MST 2006
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000e5000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000b9fc0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000b9fc0000 - 00000000b9fce000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 00000000b9fce000 - 00000000b9ff0000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 00000000b9ff0000 - 00000000ba000000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fef00000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ff780000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
2079MB HIGHMEM available.
896MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 761792
DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:0
DMA32 zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0
Normal zone: 225280 pages, LIFO batch:31
HighMem zone: 532416 pages, LIFO batch:31
DMI 2.3 present.
ACPI: RSDP (v002 ACPIAM ) @ 0x000fb870
ACPI: XSDT (v001 A M I OEMXSDT 0x01000617 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xb9fc0100
ACPI: FADT (v003 A M I OEMFACP 0x01000617 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xb9fc0290
ACPI: MADT (v001 A M I OEMAPIC 0x01000617 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xb9fc0390
ACPI: MCFG (v001 A M I OEMMCFG 0x01000617 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xb9fc0400
ACPI: OEMB (v001 A M I AMI_OEM 0x01000617 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xb9fce040
ACPI: DSDT (v001 A0368 A0368001 0x00000001 INTL 0x02002026) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x508
Allocating PCI resources starting at c0000000 (gap: ba000000:44c00000)
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
Initializing CPU#0
CPU 0 irqstacks, hard=c0423000 soft=c0422000
PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 65536 bytes)
Detected 2210.282 MHz processor.
Using pmtmr for high-res timesource
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Memory: 3016416k/3047168k available (2285k kernel code, 29492k reserved, 712k data, 184k init, 2129664k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4427.54 BogoMIPS (lpj=8855083)
Security Framework v1.0.0 initialized
SELinux: Initializing.
SELinux: Starting in permissive mode
selinux_register_security: Registering secondary module capability
Capability LSM initialized as secondary
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 078bfbff e1d3fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: 078bfbff e1d3fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 512K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: After all inits, caps: 078bfbff e1d3fbff 00000000 00000010 00000000 00000000 00000000
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+ stepping 00
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
ACPI-0311: *** Error: ns_search_and_enter: Bad character in ACPI Name: 43045350
ACPI-0292: *** Error: Looking up [0x43045350] (NON-ASCII)
in namespace, AE_BAD_CHARACTER
ACPI-0115: *** Error: acpi_load_tables: Could not load namespace: AE_BAD_CHARACTER
ACPI-0123: *** Error: acpi_load_tables: Could not load tables: AE_BAD_CHARACTER
ACPI: Unable to load the System Description Tables
checking if image is initramfs... it is
Freeing initrd memory: 1177k freed
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 3.00 entry at 0xf0031, last bus=4
PCI: Using MMCONFIG
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20050902
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI: disabled
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
Boot video device is 0000:00:05.0
PCI: Transparent bridge - 0000:00:10.0
PCI: Using IRQ router default [10de/0260] at 0000:00:0a.0
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:02.0
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: disabled.
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:03.0
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: disabled.
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:04.0
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: disabled.
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:10.0
IO window: c000-cfff
MEM window: faa00000-faafffff
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:02.0 to 64
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:03.0 to 64
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:04.0 to 64
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:10.0 to 64
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac)
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1140728252.092:1): initialized
highmem bounce pool size: 64 pages
Total HugeTLB memory allocated, 0
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
SELinux: Registering netfilter hooks
Initializing Cryptographic API
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:02.0 to 64
pcie_portdrv_probe->Dev[02fc:10de] has invalid IRQ. Check vendor BIOS
assign_interrupt_mode Found MSI capability
Allocate Port Service[pcie00]
Allocate Port Service[pcie03]
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:03.0 to 64
pcie_portdrv_probe->Dev[02fd:10de] has invalid IRQ. Check vendor BIOS
assign_interrupt_mode Found MSI capability
Allocate Port Service[pcie00]
Allocate Port Service[pcie03]
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:04.0 to 64
pcie_portdrv_probe->Dev[02fb:10de] has invalid IRQ. Check vendor BIOS
assign_interrupt_mode Found MSI capability
Allocate Port Service[pcie00]
Allocate Port Service[pcie03]
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12
Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones
PNP: No PS/2 controller found. Probing ports directly.
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 32 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 16384K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
NFORCE-MCP51: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:0d.0
NFORCE-MCP51: chipset revision 161
NFORCE-MCP51: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
NFORCE-MCP51: 0000:00:0d.0 (rev a1) UDMA133 controller
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hdaio, hdbio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdcio, hddio
Probing IDE interface ide0...
Probing IDE interface ide1...
Probing IDE interface ide0...
Probing IDE interface ide1...
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
usbcore: registered new driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: bitmap version 4.39
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 262144 (order: 10, 4194304 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 8, 1310720 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 262144 bind 65536)
TCP reno registered
TCP bic registered
Initializing IPsec netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Using IPI Shortcut mode
Freeing unused kernel memory: 184k freed
SCSI subsystem initialized
libata version 1.20 loaded.
sata_nv 0000:00:0e.0: version 0.8
PCI: Guessed IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:0e.0
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:0e.0 to 64
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xE800 ctl 0xE482 bmdma 0xE000 irq 11
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xE400 ctl 0xE082 bmdma 0xE008 irq 11
ata1: no device found (phy stat 00000000)
scsi0 : sata_nv
scsi1 : sata_nv
PCI: Guessed IRQ 10 for device 0000:00:0f.0
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:0f.0 to 64
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xDC00 ctl 0xD882 bmdma 0xD400 irq 10
ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xD800 ctl 0xD482 bmdma 0xD408 irq 10
ata3: dev 0 cfg 49:2f00 82:74eb 83:7f63 84:4003 85:74e9 86:3c43 87:4003 88:407f
ata3: dev 0 ATA-6, max UDMA/133, 145226112 sectors: LBA48
ata3: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
scsi2 : sata_nv
ata4: no device found (phy stat 00000000)
scsi3 : sata_nv
Vendor: ATA Model: WDC WD740GD-00FL Rev: 31.0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
SCSI device sda: 145226112 512-byte hdwr sectors (74356 MB)
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
SCSI device sda: 145226112 512-byte hdwr sectors (74356 MB)
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
security: 3 users, 6 roles, 888 types, 109 bools
security: 55 classes, 244108 rules
SELinux: Completing initialization.
SELinux: Setting up existing superblocks.
SELinux: initialized (dev sda3, type ext3), uses xattr
SELinux: initialized (dev tmpfs, type tmpfs), uses transition SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev debugfs, type debugfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev selinuxfs, type selinuxfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev mqueue, type mqueue), uses transition SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev hugetlbfs, type hugetlbfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev devpts, type devpts), uses transition SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev eventpollfs, type eventpollfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev inotifyfs, type inotifyfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev tmpfs, type tmpfs), uses transition SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev futexfs, type futexfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev pipefs, type pipefs), uses task SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev sockfs, type sockfs), uses task SIDs
SELinux: initialized (dev proc, type proc), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev bdev, type bdev), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev rootfs, type rootfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev sysfs, type sysfs), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev usbfs, type usbfs), uses genfs_contexts
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
nvnet: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:14.0 to 64
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:10.1 to 64
shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:0b.1 to 64
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0b.1: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0b.1: debug port 1
PCI: cache line size of 64 is not supported by device 0000:00:0b.1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0b.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0b.1: irq 5, io mem 0xfebdfc00
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0b.1: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 8 ports detected
ohci_hcd: 2005 April 22 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:0b.0 to 64
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0b.0: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0b.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0b.0: irq 5, io mem 0xfebde000
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 8 ports detected
ieee1394: Initialized config rom entry `ip1394'
ohci1394: $Rev: 1313 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.0 (PCI): IRQ=[5] MMIO=[faaff800-faafffff] Max Packet=[2048]
hub 1-2:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-2:1.0: 4 ports detected
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0b.0: wakeup
SELinux: initialized (dev ramfs, type ramfs), uses genfs_contexts
usb 2-3: new low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
NET: Registered protocol family 10
lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.48.
hiddev96: USB HID v1.10 Device [American Power Conversion Back-UPS BR 800 FW:9.o2 .D USB FW2 ] on usb-0000:00:0b.0-3
usb 1-2.4: new low speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
input: Logitech USB Receiver as /class/input/input0
input: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [Logitech USB Receiver] on usb-0000:00:0b.1-2.4
input: Logitech USB Receiver as /class/input/input1
input: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB Receiver] on usb-0000:00:0b.1-2.4
ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[0011d80000679862]
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
device-mapper: 4.4.0-ioctl (2005-01-12) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
EXT3 FS on sda3, internal journal
SELinux: initialized (dev sda1, type ext2), uses xattr
SELinux: initialized (dev tmpfs, type tmpfs), uses transition SIDs
Adding 1052248k swap on /dev/sda2. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:1052248k
SELinux: initialized (dev binfmt_misc, type binfmt_misc), uses genfs_contexts
SELinux: initialized (dev rpc_pipefs, type rpc_pipefs), uses genfs_contexts
Bluetooth: Core ver 2.8
NET: Registered protocol family 31
Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
Bluetooth: L2CAP ver 2.8
Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.6
SELinux: initialized (dev autofs, type autofs), uses genfs_contexts
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP]
parport0: irq 7 detected
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
lp0: console ready
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
eth0: no IPv6 routers present
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
security: 3 users, 6 roles, 889 types, 109 bools
security: 55 classes, 244452 rules
audit(1140753794.610:23): audit_pid=0 old=1768 by auid=4294967295
audit(1140753794.738:24): SELinux: unrecognized netlink message type=1009 for sclass=49

audit(1140753794.738:24): arch=40000003 syscall=102 success=no exit=-22 a0=b a1=bfdd9c90 a2=805a5dc a3=10 items=0 pid=8783 auid=4294967295 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 comm="auditctl" exe="/sbin/auditctl"
audit(1140753794.738:24): saddr=100000000000000000000000
audit(1140753794.738:24): nargs=6 a0=3 a1=bfdddf0c a2=10 a3=0 a4=bfde0028 a5=c
audit(1140753794.738:25): SELinux: unrecognized netlink message type=1009 for sclass=49

audit(1140753794.738:25): arch=40000003 syscall=102 success=no exit=-22 a0=b a1=bfdd9c80 a2=805a5dc a3=10 items=0 pid=8783 auid=4294967295 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 comm="auditctl" exe="/sbin/auditctl"
audit(1140753794.738:25): saddr=100000000000000000000000
audit(1140753794.738:25): nargs=6 a0=3 a1=bfdddefc a2=10 a3=0 a4=bfde0018 a5=c

Try using a PATA to SATA bridge. If the i-RAM or GC-RAMDISK gets seen then write a bug report.

You could try to specify cylinders, heads, and sectors for sdb.

Try using the sg utilities to force Linux to see the i-RAM.

Thanks, Electro, I'll try that.

Also just tried it in my ASUS A8V on both the promise and VIA channels. Same thing.

Have you found a solution for this misterious iRam not showing up? Mine is not showing up either.

From my dmesg | grep ata:

libata version 1.20 loaded.
sata_nv 0000:00:0e.0: version 0.8
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xE800 ctl 0xE482 bmdma 0xE000 irq 19
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xE400 ctl 0xE082 bmdma 0xE008 irq 19
scsi0 : sata_nv
ata2: no device found (phy stat 00000000)
scsi1 : sata_nv

So there *is* something on ata1, it just doesn't want to talk to us.

I am using a TYAN S2895. I had the same problem. The BIOS saw it, but Linux did'nt. I was using the motherboards SATA ports. I then put the I-RAM on a 3ware 8506 SATA RAID controller. It works fine now. I did not want to burn the slot, but.....

Read more at bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6163. It would be interesting to add that 3ware detects it properly.