I've Googled and scavenged the forums here, and not found an answer, so here goes:

I have a Tyan motherboard: Tyan Tiger i7505 030603 Revision V1.01 Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Revision 6.0
It includes an embedded Promise SATA 378 TX2 Plus controller with a BIOS version of 1.00.0.23

I am running Slackware 10.2 with a Kernel of 2.6.16.14.

I have compiled in support for the controller. The boot log shows this:

libata version 1.20 loaded.
sata_promise 0000:02:02.0: version 1.03
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:02.0[A] -> GSI 20 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF8818200 ctl 0xF8818238 bmdma 0x0 irq 19
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF8818280 ctl 0xF88182B8 bmdma 0x0 irq 19
ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113)
ata1: dev 0 cfg 49:2f00 82:746b 83:7f01 84:4023 85:7469 86:3c01 87:4023 88:207f
ata1: dev 0 ATA-7, max UDMA/133, 781422768 sectors: LBA48
ata1: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
scsi1 : sata_promise
ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0)
scsi2 : sata_promise
Vendor: ATA Model: WDC WD4000KD-00N Rev: 01.0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
SCSI device sda: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
SCSI device sda: 781422768 512-byte hdwr sectors (400088 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
sda: unknown partition table
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0

lspci produces one line relating to the Promise controller:

02:02.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20378 (FastTrak 378/SATA 378) (rev 02)


Despite the referencing of the drive as sda, attempts to open /dev/sda to partition it produce:

FATAL ERROR: Cannot open disk drive
Press any key to exit cfdisk

Or similar messages from other fdisk utilities.


My goal is to get the SATA drive running as an ordinary block device, so that it can be mounted and stuffed (with data).

I've tried to set it to IDE mode, but nothing happens, and I'm not sure if I should be using a particular driver for that mode. Also I am running 4 IDE controllers for a total of 8 devices, so it is possible that the controller is being masked in IDE mode by my tertiary/quadernary controller card.

Ideas anyone?

Which is the output of fdisk /dev/sda?

Unable to open /dev/sda

Not terribly informative, that.

Try to boot from a live-cd distro (e.g: knnopix) and execute fdisk. Post the result

Using Knoppix 4, the result is that at first cfdisk would not access the disk, I tried fdisk and it asked to create a partition table, then I created a partition, committed it to disk, and check with cfdisk which correctly reported the information fdisk had generated. I formatted the partition as reiserfs, then rebooted back to my normal setup.

Other than reporting the presence of partition sda1, nothing has changed. Niether cfdisk or fdisk will touch the drive, and I cannot mount the partition.

Could there be some stray setting I need to enable beyond the low-level Promise drivers and SCSI disk support?

New wrinkle, I decided to go poking around in /dev to see what I could find, most interesting is what I *don't* find.

sda and sda1 are missing from the list, sda2 through sda15 are present.


Edited for typo.

Of course you have to enable SCSI support. If you don't do it, never access to a sdx device. Compile your kernel with SCSI support and SATA suppport. Remenber if you compile them as modules, to load them before trying to access to the disk.

Good luck

I have both SATA and SCSI support, I was wondering if I needed anything else In the 2.6.14 kernel, the Promise SATA support is only accesible under SCSI. I have SCSI disk support enabled as I have things like USB sticks that need it to run. As far as I can tell, this should be running.

Well, failing that, can anyone recommend a PCI-connected SATA controller that will let me treat SATAs as ordinary, non-RAID drives?

OK, which is the output of: mount -t reiserfs /dev/sda2 /mnt ?

mount: /dev/sda2 is not a valid block device

OK, try then the same with sda1 instead of sda2 and post the result

mount: special device /dev/sda1 does not exist

Sorry, I don't what is happening , but your boot log show a sda disk. Which partition number did you assign? and Did you format it?

Using Knoppix 4, I set partition 1 to type 83-Linux, and formatted the partion as reiserfs 3.6. I suspect that if I booted Knoppix again it would show the disc on the desktop. I'm thinking of trying to compile kernel 2.6.16.18 and see if that helps.

Just for the sheer silliness of it, I did boot with Knoppox 4 again, the drive showed up on the desktop, mounted correctly, and I was able to create a folder on it.

Knoppix 4 uses kernel 2.6.12.

So, either I have a problem in my settings somewhere, or there is a bug in recent kernels. I'm betting on a settings problem myself, but I have no clue as to what might be the issue.

Anyone remember any other cases of vanishing special devices?