jessie 3.16.0-4-686-pae kernel stuck at initramfs prompt due to ata_piix module
Upon upgrading from wheezy to jessie using
linux-image-3.16.0-4-686-pae_3.16.7-ckt11-1_i386.deb for the kernel, I
discovered that I would get stuck at an initramfs prompt complaining
about md arrays not being found.
When inspecting the directories, the entire /dev/disk directory was
missing. So of course mdarray could not find the devices to start and
array. None of the underlying hard drives were being found.
The relevant part of dmsg output is the following.
ata_piix 0000:00:12.1: version 2.13
scsi2: error handler thread failed to spawn, error = -4
ata_piix: probe of 0000:00:12.1 failed with error -12
After playing around for a bit I discovered that I could work around the
problem by doing the following sequence.
1. rmmod ata_piix
2. modprobe ata_piix
3. repeat 1-2 until dmsg stops listing the ata_piix errors, and
/dev/disk appears
4. type exit into the initramfs prompt, and debian boots just fine
Usually I only have to reload the module once, but occasionally I need
to do it two or three times.
At this point, I think that this is a kernel bug. This behavior never
happened in the 3.2.0-4-686-pae kernel in wheezy.
I am not sure whom to contact or what to do next to fix this problem.
Thanks in advance for any advice or help,
Neil
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