Problem finding my SATA-drives

GangsterAlgot · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 6

Hi, i have a problem installing gentoo on my pc.

The problem is that Gentoo 2006.1 livecd wont find my sata-drives. There is no sd* in /dev/. I have a IDE-drive where i have a Windows installation, which gentoo finds as hdc. But i want to install gentoo on one of my SATA-drives. I could install gentoo on the IDE but that dont really solve the actuall problem I think. By the way, windows has no trouble at all finding my sata-drives.

Here are some of the specs of my comp:
ASUS K8N4-E DeLuxe motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3400+
2048 mb RAM
HDD:s
WDC WD2000JB-22GVC0 (IDE with windows)
WDC WD2000JD-00HBB0 (SATA)
SAMSUNG SP2504C (SATA)
ST3320620AS (Seagate) (SATA)

lspci:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:29 pm Post subject:

GangsterAlgot,

Welcome to Gentoo,

GangsterAlgot · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 6

sata_nv is loaded in my kernel and i all raid is turned off in BIOS and i still cant find my sata-drives.

dpshak · Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:44 pm Post subject:

The error you show from your dmesg is related to the Silicon Image RAID controller. From what I was able to find out about your MB, you have eight SATA ports, 4 controlled by the Nvidia chipset (sata_nv) and 4 controlled by the Silicon Image controller. Like NeddySeagoon said, your sata drives may be connected to the Silicon Image controller ports instead of the Nvidia ports. Changing the sata connection points on your MB MAY solve your problem

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:49 pm Post subject:

GangsterAlgot,

I missed

GangsterAlgot · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 6

if i move the discs to the silicon image ports gentoo still doesn't find them, and the raidcontroller starts acting up, since those ports are only for raids. I belive i have connected the drives to the right slots (nVidia ports). And since gentoo have problems loading the silicon images drivers i dont think having the drives on those ports is a good choice.

Do i need the silicon images ports, cause i can turn them off from BIOS?

My question is why gentoo doesn't find the drives at the nVidia ports (the drives has always been connected to these)? Those drivers look like they are working properly... and are loaded into the kernel.

addeman · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:33 pm Post subject:

[Edit: Remind me to think before I type next time... One don't have a kernel installed when trying to INSTALL gentoo... /EDIT]

You should consider loading the modules mod_sd and sg (scsi disk support & scsi generic support) under

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:37 pm Post subject:

GangsterAlgot,

Please post the SCSI section form your /usr/src/linux/.config file.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

GangsterAlgot · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 6

i dont have a /usr/scr/linux/ directory, my /usr/src/ is empty

/Viktor

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:10 pm Post subject:

GangsterAlgot,

In that case you are using the kernel from the installer CD. You will find its config in compressed format at /proc/config.gz
From memory, is supports all your SATA controllers. Its a fairly old kernel now, you may want to consider a kernel update.

You can either use genkernel or roll your own.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

GangsterAlgot · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 6

I fixed it using a 2005.1 gentoo installdisc instead, and everything worked just like it was supposed to.

GangsterAlgot · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 6

After some installing and trying to get some kernels to work I figured out that it is the later kernels that doesn't have support for the nforce4 satadrivers. Every kernel 2.6.16 or later is quite convinced its a bad idea to find my sata-drives

Now i'm running 2.6.12 and it seems to be working fine.

I do wonder what it is in the 2.6.16 and later that convinced them that nforce4-sata is the mother of all evil...

All jokes aside, is there anyone who can figure out what the problem is? I don't belive it is the sata_nv driver because it works just fine in 2.6.12.

/Viktor

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:04 pm Post subject:

GangsterAlgot,

I would be surprised if the nv_sata had been damaged in recent kernels. We would be seeing a lot more posts about it than just yours.
In kernel 2.6.19, the SATA configuration has been moved - it does not migrate well with the usual make oldconfig. You need to go into menuconfig and check and maybe select it again.

Try comparing the SATA settings between a kernel that works and one that doesn't
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

addeman · Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 10:41 am Post subject:

NeddySeagoon,

I can verify that something is wrong. I spent 2 days trying to get GangsterAlgot's computer up and running.

I witnessed it not finding the hdd's nor NIC with a 2006.x install-cd, but it worked just fine with 2005.1.

I also configured a lot of kernels, i tried the following (all 2.6 gentoo-sources) 12-r10,16-r13, 17-r9, 18-r4, 19-r2. The only one that will find a root partion is the 2.6.12-r10 kernel. I can promise that all the necessary things are in kernel, not as modules etc.

I do agree that it's a bit strange that not more people are having troubles with it, but there are those who do:Example1 , Example 2. Although the second thread seems to be resolved, trying what they did actually didn't help

It could be a specific Asus K8N4-E Deluxe thing, or something with running a 32-bit kernel.

Addeman

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 1:33 pm Post subject:

addeman,

If you can find a common feature with other threads, I'll merge them and make a sticky.

Can you try a 64 bit kernel with 32 bit support ?
That would be an interesting experiment
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

addeman · Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:06 am Post subject:

Hi,

i'll see what i can do about both things. I'll start searching for threads a soon as get back home to my broadband connection[/code].

How would i go about compiling a 64 bit kernel? Is it something like

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 1:52 pm Post subject:

addeman,

The config step works, I'm not sure about the make and you really don't want to install any 64 bit stuff on a 32 bit box, so if it works, make ARCH=x86_64 modules_install is a really bad idea.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

addeman · Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 8:00 pm Post subject:

Thats true, of course... But then one would have to build a monolithic kernel

I guess its just easier to do it on my 64-bit machine after all.

When we tried to boot a GangsterAlgot's computer with a livecd we tried 2005.1 Amd64 (64-bit) [had no i386 livecd around at the time

] and it worked great up until building a 32-bit kernel, even though i used

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:06 pm Post subject:

addeman,

Other than the config, I've not ried the rest. However, it occurs to me that setting the ARCH may only be required for the make menuconfig step.
Everything needed for the build is in the .config file.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

addeman · Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:49 pm Post subject:

Well after some searching the forums for sata_nv and sata related problems here is a selection of posts:

sata_nv problems (same as earlier post), same model of motherboard: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-522268.html
sata_nv problems (nforce4 chipset, irqpoll doesn't help either) https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-502963.html
sata_nv problems nforce 570 chipset: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-517037.html
sata-problems (resolved, the suggested fix didn't help): https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-465985.html
sata-problems (more general): https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-512228.html
sata_nv problems (though trying to use raid): https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-522765.html

Oh, and by the way, trying to boot the 64-bit kernel i compiled resulted in

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:10 pm Post subject:

addeman,

Well, unknown-block(2,0) is /dev/fd0. You won't have a Gentoo root filesystem there.
I'd be guessing if I speculated how sdb3, that would be (8,19) got turned into (2,0)

See less /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt if you want to know where to get the numbers.
The format is unknown-block(Major,Minor)
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

addeman · Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:42 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the info, i've been looking for a documentation of those device-numbers or a while.

Maybe we could try to boot with something like:

cyrillic · Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 5:12 pm Post subject: