The good news:

I sent my email to you in a private message, but I've solved the problem just now (for me anyway). At line 1806 in linux/osd_main.c

- u64 cylinders;
+ u32 cylinders;

u64 simply needs to be changed to u32. Once this is done, I'm able to insmod it just fine. Now obviously you're going to want to add something in the nature of:

#if defined(CONFIG_X86_64)
u64 cylinders;
#else
u32 cylinders;
#endif

Bad News:

Although the module compiles and inserts into the kernel, I'm still unable to see any devices connected to the controller. Were you actually able to see any drive connected to it? Keep in mind that during boot the drive is detected. Once in linux, I load the module, dmesg (and see that it worked) but where is the drive???

(this is a portion of a private email posted here for other users)

I am very glad to see you got in inserted. I didn’t modify the line you speak of, so it seems it was meant to be that way in 32bit kernels too. Likely what happened is when you modified that line, the 64bit division turned into 32bit division which this has been available for almost ever, so no linking problems. Still curious, is your problems with the 64bit division function. However, 32 bits should be fine too as long as your drive container (in the Promise Array Utility) does not report more than 2^32 cylinders.

Once I compiled and insmod'd the module I was able to see the drive immediately. This was using the Linux Live CD too, which I used to build the module so I could later insert it during the install process. (During the install you can go to another vterm, like Alt-Ctrl-F2, do your insmod, then back to the install vterm and continue the install process, then later when the install finishes but before your reboot, you update the initrd with it too using the other vterm. may sound complex, but pretty easy actually.)

You did create a container in your Promise Array utility/setup that appears during POST right? If you didn’t create a container, then you wouldn’t see any drives, even if just a single drive is on the controller I don’t think it automatically creates a container or virtual device for it. btw: I noticed the controller emulates a scsi devices. My drive shows up as /dev/sda. But if I put my old PATA drive in, then my SATA drives becomes sdc, but luckily linux now uses the drive UUID if specified in fstab, so it boots fine no matter what the /dev/sd is.

Colin

No, I did not create a container for it. It posted the drive as JBOD (which is fine) because I don't plan on using it at the moment for any actual RAID setup. I'll try that and post the results back here.

Still a no go. I'm not exactly sure what you meant by "create a container for it" unless you assumed I had multiple devices plugged into the controller. It's simply 1, 500GB HDD. When I 'ls /dev/sd*' or 'ls /dev/hd*' or even 'ls /dev/md*' all I see it what was there previously. Obviously I'm not doing something right. What version BIOS do you have on your board? I ask because I recently upgraded to v1.4.

Hmm...could it possibly be that the driver isn't setup to handle JBOD? Perhaps I would actally have to have both of my 500's hooked up and define an array? Just speculating....

We both have to remember, I have a TX4650 PCI-E card, and you have the same chip but integrated on your motherboard. There may be differences between its firmware or BIOS implementation and thus the driver too. If you go onto the Promise website does it give you the same link to the drivers?

When I reboot, the card hooks the BIOS and initializes itself. It posts a "Press Ctrl-? to enter Promise Array Setup" or something like that. Inside that it lists the hard drives attached and how I want to combine those hard drives. In my case I took my three identical drives of 320GB and made a container of 640GB RAID 5 (1 lost drive, 2+1 config). A container is just promise's term for a *virtual* hard drive that spans 1 or more drives. You could even have 1 container that spans the first half of three drives, and another that spans the latter half of the three drives.

I am not sure what the card would report to BIOS if I didnt create the container. Maybe it would report as three dries hda,hdb,hdc, I dont know, maybe it would not report any drives at all until I at least created a container on one of the drives. I cant find out now without deleting my config.

My motherboard is a MSI P7N Diamond with a Intel Quad Core 2.4GHz. I think your motherboard is a P7N Plantinum? There is a substantial difference in the two chipsets for these boards. You may want to go on the MSI forums too.

http://forum.msi.com.tw/

These forums are quite active and have some *really* smart people on there. They are mostly over-clockers and they understand the ins and outs of memory & pci timing to a great deal! I am still having a few stupid problems with my motherboard, not sure I am happy with it. For example, I still cant reboot my machine without unplugging all usb devices or my promise card init locks up. I have the most recent firmware for both the promise card and the MB but no go. Other people are complaining about usb probs with my MB too. My memory was only detected as 800MHz versus 1000MHz, but the guys on the forum had the answer for that. I have the same username on there.

I still dont understand most of the driver coding. I was lucky to get it working myself probably. I think to tackle this problem we need to hasten the communication. We should move to instant messenger or over the phone. I have free long distance. I also call on other people with the PDC42819 chip to get in contact with me (via private message here or on my website) and together we can tackle the problem.

I think that just answered my question. I was under the impression we were both using the same motherboard..haha. I have the MSI K9A2 Platinum. So the problem is the different revision of the Promise BIOS. That, and I have an integrated controller, yours' is simply an add-on card.

Oh well...it was worth a shot. I'll try the MSI forums and see what I can come up with. Thanks for all your help, I'm sure the people with your particular card will find this thread very useful.

Hi viron and guru...

I too am a proud owner of a k9a2 platinum board. So...I have the same concerns.

I just got the puter assembled and don't even have a 64 bit linux yet to try on it.

That said..I booted a 32 bit Kubuntu 8.04 to see what would happen.

viron make sure you hit Cntl-F when the Promise bios come up. I'm sure you have to create a
raid configuration so the controller knows you have disks... I did and at every boot the bios
reports the disk I have.

My setup is slightly different than both of you as I bought a Fujitsu 73 G 15k rpm SAS drive.
The controller seems to like it because I hear it spin up when the Bios checks for it.
(if you buy a SAS drive you need a special cable tho SAS to SATA (get at scsi4me.com))

I have one issue as I only have this one hard drive installed in the box. I'll have to
work at getting a distro installed on it. I probably will attach with usb for the time being while sorting out the drive.

This is like a flashback for me. I haven't panic'd a kernel since '93 when I was trying to get my
UltraStor34 scsi controller installed on 1.0.13.

I checked the bootlog and the pci and they duly report the promise as registered but 'unknown'..so I imagine with some driver tweaking it should work.

Oh and Guru..I sent you an email on your website...I'm in St. Pete too.

Hi guys!

guru_stpetebeach, great work!

[Removed]

Edit: I removed the previous post as I did not see guru_stpetebeach's guide on his webpage before now. I'll try the steps described there :-)

To get this working for the MSI K9A2 board, you need to make one adjustment to guru_stpetebeach's code. The vendor id is incorrect for the PDC42819 chip that is included on the MSI mainboard.

In linux/osd_main.c

Find the line:
{ 0x105a, 0x3f20, 0x105a, 0x3716, 0, 0, 0 }, //FastTrak PDC42819; SubDeviceID 3F20 -> 3716(20070625)


and change it to:

{ 0x105a, 0x3f20, 0x1462, 0x3716, 0, 0, 0 }, //FastTrak PDC42819; SubDeviceID 3F20 -> 3716(20070625)

recompile
and install this module. You will have to at least make your drives JBOD (from the RAID BIOS utility) to be recognized.

I obtained this information by issuing lspci -vv -nn in a shell. This will cause the PCI string in the generated t3sas.mod.c to include an identifier for the MSI board and it will match now.

Enjoy!

Jim

Awesome!We should be able to add a new PCI line instead of modifying the existing one. I will look into it. I will also post a note to this thread from my website so MSI MB owners will know what to do.

Thanks,
C

I cant download your driver the WwW says something about administrator editing files:\

I dont know what was wrong, I got the same error too. I recently moved my web site as the old server is being rebuilt and having problems with it.

It is working now though, I refreshed the files within my website CMS.

i have the driver but i cant make it on ubuntu 8.04 probobly b'cuz im to new to ubuntu :\

What is the problem you are having?

I am using 8.04 ubuntu on 64bit arch. If you are using the 64bit arch, I can send you my binary module and it should work fine. Send me your email address by personal message.

C

Hi guys,

I'm having a few problems setting up the tx4650 card. I'm running fedora 9 64bit. (2.6.25.4-30.fc8.x86_64 kernel)

When compiling a get a pile of errors. They start with

I'm not entirely sure how to fix this error as I have the kernel-devel and kernel-headers packages installed (it is entering the correct directory for my kernel source). Is there anything that I can do to get past this? I think these 2 files referenced above no longer exist in the .25 kernel (at the locations referenced anyway) could anyone point me in the right direction please? I'm happy to collect more info and help with the updating of this driver to make it more robust/versatile for more users if possible.

Cheers,
Chris