SATA drive not detected

tskuzzy · 08-11-2008, 06:52 PM

I'm trying to install Ubuntu 8.04 via LiveCD, but my Seagate 500GB SATA drive isn't detected.

sudo fdisk -l returns blank

I've tried adding "acpi=off noapic" to kernel boot options, but to no avail.

The odd thing is, a GParted LiveCD detects the drive perfectly well. The kernel boot options for GParted is:

Code:

kernel /boot/gparted root=/dev/ram0 init=linuxrc real_root=/dev/loop0 looptype=squashfs loop=/gparted.dat udev dokeymap scandelay=6 cdroot dodmraid nosound

lspci in the Ubuntu LiveCD returns:

Code:

$ sudo lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Eaglelake DRAM Controller (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Eaglelake PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation ICH10 HD Audio Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation ICH10 PCI Express Port 1
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation ICH10 PCI Express Port 2
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation ICH10 PCI Express Port 3
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH10 LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation ICH10 4 port SATA IDE Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation ICH10 SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation ICH10 2 port SATA IDE Controller
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV630 [Radeon HD 2600XT]
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV630/M76 audio device [Radeon HD 2600 Series]
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
04:00.0 IDE interface: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMB368 IDE controller

Any suggestions?

jay73 · 08-12-2008, 01:00 AM

Go into BIOS and try setting the drive to use AHCI mode. I can't think of a reason why it shouldn't work as I have SATA working just fine with an ICH10R board.

tskuzzy · 08-12-2008, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jay73

Go into BIOS and try setting the drive to use AHCI mode. I can't think of a reason why it shouldn't work as I have SATA working just fine with an ICH10R board.

YES, I got it to work! I followed your advice (setting the drive to use AHCI mode) as well as adding a few kernel boot options, just in case.

The options I added were: "acpi=off noapic udev cdroot dodmraid"
Could someone explain to me what these options do?

jay73 · 08-12-2008, 10:52 AM

Neither of those should be needed AFAIK.

Bruce Hill · 08-12-2008, 11:44 PM

Your motherboard's South Bridge uses the Intel Corporation ICH10 chipset.

I believe if you check the output of "lspci -v" as root, you will see that
you are using kernel module ata_piix for your SATA controller.

What you need is a kernel which has support for ICH10 in the ata_piix module.
Find where your kernel is located on that distribution and issue this:

Code:

less /path/to/kernel/drivers/ata/ata_piix.c | grep -i ICH10
example:

mingdao@silas:~$ less kernel/linux-2.6.26.2/drivers/ata/ata_piix.c | grep -i ICH10
        /* SATA Controller IDE (ICH10) */
        /* SATA Controller IDE (ICH10) */
        /* SATA Controller IDE (ICH10) */
        /* SATA Controller IDE (ICH10) */

If you kernel does not have ICH10 support there, you need a new kernel.

jay73 · 08-13-2008, 03:46 AM

No, I don't believe he is using ATA_PIIX as that is only used when BIOS uses IDE mode rather than AHCI. Besides, I pointed out that I have an ICH10R and that it works fine (I am actually using a custom 2.6.26 but I don't notice any difference at all - except much faster boot times, of course).

Bruce Hill · 08-13-2008, 03:51 AM

So jay73, what is your "lspci -v" output for your SATA controller, and "uname -a" ?

Because ICH10 was not in the AHCI driver until recent kernels, also.

jay73 · 08-13-2008, 03:59 AM

Well, running those commands now won't be very instructive considering that I'm already running a custom 2.6.26 but I saved the output of lsmod while I was still running the stock kernel to check whether I wasn't forgetting certain options running makeconfig. As you can see, ahci and libata and no ata_pixx:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
ahci                   33028  15 
libata                176432  1 ahci
output                  5632  1 video
iptable_filter          4608  0 
ip_tables              24104  1 iptable_filter
x_tables               23560  1 ip_tables
mbcache                11392  2 ext2,ext3
aes_x86_64             26920  0 
snd_emu10k1_synth       9472  0 
snd_emux_synth         40960  1 snd_emu10k1_synth
snd_seq_virmidi         9344  1 snd_emux_synth
snd_seq_midi_emul       9088  1 snd_emux_synth
snd_ac97_codec        123224  1 snd_emu10k1
ac97_bus                3840  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm                92168  4 snd_emu10k1,snd_ac97_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
nvidia               8115216  34 
snd_seq_oss            38912  0 
snd_page_alloc         13200  3 snd_emu10k1,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem            6656  2 snd_emux_synth,snd_emu10k1
serio_raw               9092  0 
snd_seq_midi           10688  0 
snd_hwdep              12552  3 snd_emux_synth,snd_emu10k1,snd_hda_intel
snd_rawmidi            29856  3 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_emu10k1,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event     10112  3 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                63232  9 snd_emux_synth,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi_emul,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer              27912  3 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device         10644  8 snd_emu10k1_synth,snd_emux_synth,snd_emu10k1,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
shpchp                 38172  0 
vgastate               11264  1 nvidiafb
font                   10112  1 fbcon
bitblit                 7424  1 fbcon
softcursor              3712  1 bitblit
sbs                    17808  0 
sbshc                   8960  1 sbs
cdrom                  41512  1 sr_mod
fbcon                  46336  72 
dm_crypt               16776  0 
dm_mod                 71160  1 dm_crypt
sr_mod                 20132  0 
sd_mod                 33280  19 
scsi_mod              178488  4 sg,sr_mod,sd_mod,libata
mii                     7552  1 ipg
coretemp                9856  0 
f71882fg               14344  0 
binfmt_misc            14860  1 
pci_hotplug            34608  1 shpchp
snd_seq_dummy           5764  0 
snd_pcm_oss            47648  0 
snd_mixer_oss          20224  1 snd_pcm_oss
soundcore              10400  1 snd
i2c_algo_bit            8452  1 nvidiafb
i2c_core               28544  4 nvidia,nvidiafb,fb_ddc,i2c_algo_bit
snd_emu10k1           162272  3 snd_emu10k1_synth
lockd                  76080  3 nfsd,nfs
fb_ddc                  4096  1 nvidiafb
nvidiafb               54184  0 
parport_pc             41128  0 
lp                     14916  0 
parport                44300  3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
ppdev                  11400  0 
vesafb                 10504  1 
sunrpc                213640  11 nfsd,auth_rpcgss,nfs,lockd,nfs_acl
freq_table              6464  3 acpi_cpufreq,cpufreq_stats,cpufreq_ondemand
tileblit                4096  1 fbcon
auth_rpcgss            53280  1 nfsd
exportfs                7040  1 nfsd
nfsd                  282024  13 
jbd                    57000  1 ext3
acpi_cpufreq           10832  1 
cpufreq_userspace       6180  0 
cpufreq_stats           8416  0 
cpufreq_powersave       3200  0 
cpufreq_ondemand       11152  1 
video                  23444  0 
cpufreq_conservative    10632  0 
container               6656  0 
dock                   12960  0 
thermal                19744  0 
processor              41448  2 acpi_cpufreq,thermal
fuse                   56112  3
nfs                   291576  0 
nfs_acl                 5248  2 nfsd,nfs
snd_hda_intel         440408  3 
snd                    70856  25 snd_emux_synth,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_emu10k1,snd_ac97_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq_dummy,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_hwdep,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
usbcore               169904  3 ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd
ehci_hcd               41996  0 
uhci_hcd               29856  0 
button                 10912  0 
evdev                  14976  3 
pcspkr                  4992  0 
sg                     41880  0 
ipv6                  311848  14 
ac                      8328  0 
fan                     6792  0 
battery                16776  0 
ipg                    20992  0 
psmouse                46236  0 
ext2                   80400  2 
jfs                   189648  2 
ext3                  149264  1 
xfs                   562152  8 
r8169                  36612  0 
floppy                 69096  0

Bruce Hill · 08-13-2008, 04:15 AM

Both those drivers are from libata

The only other board I've seen running with AHCI was in a kernel
which did not have ICH10 support. The hard drive ran really slow.

jay73 · 08-13-2008, 04:41 AM

Wait, what are you saying exactly? That it would be better to use ata_pixx? I just did a check and I feel that the result is not all that bad (Samsung spinpoint 500GB SATA):

/dev/sdb:
Timing cached reads: 5076 MB in 2.00 seconds = 2539.26 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 238 MB in 3.03 seconds = 78.60 MB/sec

I would imagine that ATA_PIIX is slightly faster on sequential access but AHCI (at least in theory) should generally be faster on random access.

Bruce Hill · 08-13-2008, 04:58 AM

hdparm is not good benchmarking utilities -- use bonnie++

Yes, there are different chipsets supported by the libata driver.
Check the output I've shown you previously. What I am saying is that
from short experience with the ICH10 chipset, it is better to use a
driver which has ICH10 support. You are using such a one. Grep your
kernel driver and you will see.

Whether he uses the AHCI or ATA_PIIX is probably irrelevant. If it were
my board, I'd use AHCI - but a NEW kernel with ICH10 in AHCI. But the
support for ICH10 was not added (to either one) until recently. The earliest
kernel where I found that support is:

Code:

mingdao@silas:~$ less /server1/silas/mingdao/kernel/linux-2.6.25.7/drivers/ata/ahci.c | grep -i ICH10
        { PCI_VDEVICE(INTEL, 0x3a05), board_ahci }, /* ICH10 */
        { PCI_VDEVICE(INTEL, 0x3a25), board_ahci }, /* ICH10 */
mingdao@silas:~$ less /server1/silas/mingdao/kernel/linux-2.6.25.7/drivers/ata/ata_piix.c | grep -i ICH10
        /* SATA Controller IDE (ICH10) */
        /* SATA Controller IDE (ICH10) */
        /* SATA Controller IDE (ICH10) */
        /* SATA Controller IDE (ICH10) */

Back to an earlier question for the OP -- "uname -a"