Hi. I've been using kernels with the new libata code since Linus merged the files into his tree, and on my machines with PIIX hardware things have not worked as smoothly as they did when using the drivers/ide code. That's to be expected as the code is now getting much wider testing, so a problem or two will be discovered. I've checked on this list for various patches dealing with PIIX machines and other libata issues, and it looks like there are several potential patches and patch sets that may solve some of the problems I've seen. A quick peek at the libata git repo this morning, however, and I saw that these patches do not appear to be queued up to go into -rc2 just yet. Are the patches still to "fluid" to be sent upstream? On one machine I use, the system doesn't recognize the CD-ROM drive and prints out numerous 'abnormal status 0xFF' warnings: [ ... snip ... ] libata version 2.00 loaded. ata_piix 0000:00:07.1: version 2.00ac6 ata1: PATA max UDMA/33 cmd 0x1F0 ctl 0x3F6 bmdma 0xF000 irq 14 ata2: PATA max UDMA/33 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xF008 irq 15 scsi0 : ata_piix ata1.00: ATA-2, max UDMA/33, 6303024 sectors: LBA ata1.00: ata1: dev 0 multi count 16 ata1.01: ATA-4, max UDMA/66, 16514064 sectors: LBA ata1.01: ata1: dev 1 multi count 16 ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33 ata1.01: configured for UDMA/33 scsi1 : ata_piix ATA: abnormal status 0xFF on port 0x177 ATA: abnormal status 0xFF on port 0x177 ata2.00: ATAPI, max MWDMA1 ata2.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xa1) ata2.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4) ata2.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5) ata2.00: limiting speed to PIO4 ata2: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs ATA: abnormal status 0xFF on port 0x177 ATA: abnormal status 0xFF on port 0x177 ata2.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xa1) ata2.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4) ata2.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5) ata2.00: limiting speed to PIO0 ata2: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs ATA: abnormal status 0xFF on port 0x177 ATA: abnormal status 0xFF on port 0x177 ata2.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xa1) ata2.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4) ata2.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5) ata2.00: disabled scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST33232A 3.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 SCSI device sda: 6303024 512-byte hdwr sectors (3227 MB) sda: Write Protect is off sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through SCSI device sda: 6303024 512-byte hdwr sectors (3227 MB) sda: Write Protect is off sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 sda7 > sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda scsi 0:0:1:0: Direct-Access ATA FUJITSU MPD3084A DD-0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 SCSI device sdb: 16514064 512-byte hdwr sectors (8455 MB) sdb: Write Protect is off sdb: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write back SCSI device sdb: 16514064 512-byte hdwr sectors (8455 MB) sdb: Write Protect is off sdb: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write back sdb: sdb1 sdb2 < sdb5 sdb6 > sdb3 sd 0:0:1:0: Attached scsi disk sdb [ ... snip ... ] The 'sdc' device should be the CD-ROM. There is a patch by Tejun Heo dealing with the 0xff status that may fix this problem. Another machine has problems when looking at the CD-ROM, but instead of the 0xff message the system does several retries and long waits to identify the device, and ultimately bails on it. I think there was a series of five or six patches that dealt with problems like this - something about ghost or phantom device handling. Thanks in advance for any info about various libata patches that you could send my way. Art Haas -- Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. -Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ide" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
