Re: Debian stable & SATA drive
Owen Heisler wrote:
> I have an Abit AX8 motherboard, specifications here:
>
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1&model=215
> with Athlon 64 3000+.
> I have tried both 3.1r2 i386 stable and 3.1r0a amd64 stable.
>
> The motherboard has four SATA ports. I want to use three of these
ports
> for software RAID5. I am trying a single SATA drive on each of the
> ports. The first and second work fine with the Debian installer, but
> the third and fourth are not detected at all.
Most likely ports 1 and 2 are handled by the native VIA 8237 Chipset
(which has support in Debian 3.1r1 Sarge 2.6 Kernel, IIRC), whereas
ports 3 and 4 are handled by another 3rd party Chip (Marvell
perhaps)...your Mobo Manual will explain this.
> BIOS detects the drive
> anywhere. It was suggested on IRC to set up a single-drive JBOD
array,
> but the BIOS utility doesn't allow that. There are no options in the
> BIOS for SATA drives other than disabling the onboard RAID utility,
> which doesn't help.
>
> I know I don't have any hardware problems because I have successfully
> installed Fedora Core 5 on the drive when connected to the third
port.
Since FC5 is much more 'cutting edge' than Sarge (Stable) , I'd expect
this behavior
> Why doesn't Debian detect the drive? More importantly, what can I do
to
> make it detect it?
Look into loading the module needed for support of that 3rd party Chip
that handles SATA ports 3 and 4 -- check your FC5 log files for the
correct module perhaps.
> I have tried all (only two) of the parameters for
> the sata_via (or via_sata) module.
>
> Thanks.
I wish I knew 'exactly' what to tell you to get this done, but Kenshi's
backport (mentioned by another) may do the 'trick' (have support for
your 3rd party Chip) already.
Consider a real RAID5/6 PCI card - that mobo seems to support RAID0/1
...and 0+1(using Both SATA Controllers). I realize you want a Software
RAID5, but most of those cheaper OnBoard RAID solutions are already a
"software emulation" even though a Hardware Chip is involved -- similar
(in a sense) to the WinModem trickery that many PCI Modems use - so I'd
think your in for some headbanging and hairpulling even if you gain
support for SATA ports 3 and 4.
What to do ?
* See Rick Moens SATA page
<http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html>
* delve into the comp.os.linux.hardware ng archives :-)
* Roll your own distro <http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/>
* Read more about the Debian Installers
<http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/installers.html>
* Use a more 'cutting edge' version (testing or unstable)
Regards
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