LinuxQuestions.org - DMA...SATA...Laptop problems

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DMA...SATA...Laptop problems

I am having some problems getting everything together on my shiny new Dell XPS M1210 Laptop. Most of it stems from DMA's inability to work and my inability to get my SATA drive in there.

Can anyone tell me specifically which kernel parameters I need in there to get this SATA hard drive found?

I have an Intel 82801 Serial Ata storage controller IDE, according to lspci.

When I get into fstab and lilo and append hda=noprobe and manually set the HD as an sda device, I get a kernel panic. When I boot off of the slackware disc and use the sata.i kernel, it works. However, I need to use a 2.6 kernel. This leads me to believe that I don't have the proper SATA configuration in my kernel configuration before I compile. Can anyone help me?

Hi,

You should try the huge26 kernel. That kernel has the filesystems and drivers for most of the popular equipment.

The RELEASE_NOTES for Slackware 11 would be a good place to look for some useful information.

@spaceballs- I had similar troubles trying to use sata.i as my default Slack11 kernel. I could install and everything was hunky dory but when I'd look in fstab and lilo.conf my HD was listed as "/dev/hda" - is this what you're seeing?

If so I echo huge26.s kernel, my sequence to fix it went something like this:

1- copy huge26.s and edit lilo (change all hda's to sda's and so on...)
2- edit fstab (& mtab?) as needed (i.e. if they still say 'dev/hda')
3- run lilo
4- reboot

I actually never edited mtab, didnt think of that until now. But the above seemed to get me past the kernel panic, and then of course I was free to compile my own kernel.

When you say you're getting kernel panic, is that with your own kernel? Or is it with the sata.i? If its your own kernel it may be simple as something not compiled in.

If so I can post my .config and you can compare (I have a dell latitude w/sata - not so shiny as yours but could be a good starting point :) )

-btw- I think the reason sata.i is working from the Slack disk is (maybe)it makes an initrd that includes support for your sata controller. You may be able to try going that route too, but I prefer to compile in support for my HD. (I NU-B so can't make initrd that works ;))

I am getting this with the kernel that I compiled. It is a newer laptop, and a lot of the drivers on it don't seem to work with the 2.4. I get a kernel panic when I use the "factory" kernel huge26.s, but not when I use the sata.i.

I found a config file on the internet that seems to work very well. Here is the link.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spaceballs

I found a config file on the internet that seems to work very well

so did it fix your problem?

checked and I too have the 82801G intel sata controller.

I skimmed using ctrl+F for sata in that .config and it looks like everything under the sun for SATA is a 'y'

An obvious question: is your filesystem compiled in to your custom kernels?

I notice in the link you provide the .config has this built:

Code:

#

# File systems

#

CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y

# CONFIG_EXT2_FS_XATTR is not set

# CONFIG_EXT2_FS_XIP is not set

# CONFIG_EXT3_FS is not set

# CONFIG_REISERFS_FS is not set

# CONFIG_JFS_FS is not set

CONFIG_FS_POSIX_ACL=y

# CONFIG_XFS_FS is not set

# CONFIG_OCFS2_FS is not set

# CONFIG_MINIX_FS is not set

CONFIG_ROMFS_FS=m

CONFIG_INOTIFY=y

CONFIG_QUOTA=y

CONFIG_QFMT_V1=m

CONFIG_QFMT_V2=m

CONFIG_QUOTACTL=y

CONFIG_DNOTIFY=y

CONFIG_AUTOFS_FS=m

CONFIG_AUTOFS4_FS=m

CONFIG_FUSE_FS=m

which I think means unless you are using ext2 exclusively then you'll never be able to boot. Unless your root directory is ext2. But if you're other partitions are ext3 or reiserfs they wouldn't be accessible.

my .config has this ( I use ext2 on /boot and ext3 everywhere else):

Code:

#

# File systems

#

CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y

CONFIG_EXT2_FS_XATTR=y

CONFIG_EXT2_FS_POSIX_ACL=y

# CONFIG_EXT2_FS_SECURITY is not set

# CONFIG_EXT2_FS_XIP is not set

CONFIG_EXT3_FS=y

CONFIG_EXT3_FS_XATTR=y

CONFIG_EXT3_FS_POSIX_ACL=y

# CONFIG_EXT3_FS_SECURITY is not set

# CONFIG_EXT4DEV_FS is not set

CONFIG_JBD=y

# CONFIG_JBD_DEBUG is not set

CONFIG_FS_MBCACHE=y

# CONFIG_REISERFS_FS is not set

# CONFIG_JFS_FS is not set

CONFIG_FS_POSIX_ACL=y

# CONFIG_XFS_FS is not set

# CONFIG_GFS2_FS is not set

# CONFIG_OCFS2_FS is not set

# CONFIG_MINIX_FS is not set

# CONFIG_ROMFS_FS is not set

CONFIG_INOTIFY=y

CONFIG_INOTIFY_USER=y

# CONFIG_QUOTA is not set

CONFIG_DNOTIFY=y

# CONFIG_AUTOFS_FS is not set

CONFIG_AUTOFS4_FS=y

# CONFIG_FUSE_FS is not set

CONFIG_GENERIC_ACL=y

stretching my knowledge here:

- your link has fs support ONLY for ext2
- if you use any other fs on your HD then you'll always get kernel panic

So please reply w/filesystems you are using, if its only ext2 you have then it must be a different problem.

I did catch that in their installation and I did compile in support for reiserfs and ext3. I still think of myself as a n00b, but I did get that one right. What I am trying now is ditching that installation and using the huge26.s kernel. I think that I can get it to work if I specify in fstab and lilo that I am using sda instead of hda.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spaceballs

I still think of myself as a n00b...

me too :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by spaceballs

ditching that installation and using the huge26.s kernel.

after i did the fix I listed above I ended up doing this too, and everything worked great thereafter.

What I did was booted from the disk and used the huge26.s config file to build my own kernel. I made no modifications to the config. Then I did the usual stuff, rebooted, and it panicked again. It still can't find the root drive. What am I doing wrong? Is there something else that I should be throwing in there? I thought that I have all of the SATA stuff in there and I know that I have support for reiserfs and ext3, the two file systems that I am using. Help?

Can you post exactly what is says before it panics ?

These are the last three lines:
VFS: Cannot open root device "803" or unknown-block(8,3)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-blocl(8,3)

Usually, I see this error when I haven't compiled in support for the right file system. However, here I know that I have. The only reason that I think that it could possibly panic is because it isn't picking up the SATA drive. Does that sound right? This one is really stumping me.

Well then do what it says and 'Please append a correct "root=" boot option'.

If you have filesystem support built in there is no reason for it to fail (other than something funky going on with SATA).

There is something funky going on with SATA. I have a correctly appended boot option. My root is /dev/sda3 in practice and in LiLo. Is there a proprietary driver for this intel mainboard that I don't know about?

Well, I see that you can boot with sata.i and not huge26.s, so I recommend booting with sata.i, downloading the newest kernel source, and building your own kernel. (Might wanna check the config on that sata.i kernel ... if that works then it's something in there that makes it work)

They say that many SATA issues in 2.6.x kernels are solved by newer kernel versions. However, I bet (not too much money) if you do 'make oldconfig' using the sata.i config and the slackware 2.6.17.13 kernel source, it'll work ... unless, of course, there is a problem with this specific kernel ... that's rare.

I tried that a while back, too. This leads me to believe that there is a module or a driver that I need to download. I will keep at it, but that is what I did. Thanks.

Did you try using the config file for the sata.i kernel to make your new kernel? You did run make menuconfig and make sure that SATA and your controller under SATA were enabled, right?