Serial ATA drives with RedHat 9

[tpfraz]

Hello, I have a new server with a 120 GB Seagate S-ATA hard drive. The motherboard I have is an Intel server board (S875WP1-E). This mothboard has built in serial ATA controllers.
I am wondering if anyone has been able to successfully install any kind of Linux on a serial ATA hard drive (I'm trying RedHat 9). I have checked many places and have read many different things about this but still can't get it to work.
The BIOS recognizes the drives just fine, but during the RedHat setup it tells me that it cannot find any hard drives to create file systems on.
I have tried loading Windows 2003 server just to test it and it finds the drives just fine.
I know that S-ATA drives are a new technology and I really want to get this working.
I have read some places that I may need to build a new kernel with support for S-ATA.
But all of the instructions are for systems that are already running.
How would I build a kernel for a bare system to do a clean install? I have never done this.
Can I make a bootable image somehow with the support for the hard drive and then install RedHat on top of that?
Oh, I have also tried some drivers that Intel has on their website that sounded like they would work, but they didn't.

Thanks for any help...

-Travis

[Jerome Henry]

Hi Travis,

A few tips :

1. You are right. Applying a patch to a kernel implies to have it recompiled somewhere, so most of the time you need a working install to do so.
2. Otherwise, you need another plateform to put the kernel sources on, and recompile it, then use this kernel for install on a new, home burned, install CD.
3. Last solution, get a stanadrd HD for install, recompile, then turn to S ATA.

OK, this is not much usefull in you case. A few ways out there :
4. Mandrake 9.1 supports S ATA, that's what they claim (didn't try it though).
5. Same for Redhat Advanced Server 3.0.
6. Same for Fedora (public release in mid november, it's the succesor of RH 9).
7. Not the case on RH9, you won't be able to make it work on first install without a pre-compiled kernel or another HD.

Good luck.

J

[tpfraz]

Thanks for the reply Jerome.
I just got it working though, I'm so excited.
It's installing this very minute. I just hope no other problems arise.
I didn't have to compile a new kernel thankfully.
In the bios I set the drives to use legacy mode and use a combination of SATA P0/P1
and the one PATA primary for the cdrom.
I found this post on linuxquestions.org that helped me out.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/74907

Thanks again...
-Travis

[Jerome Henry]

Great !

It means that you could turn the SATA function out of your CD rom driver ! Cool !

Keep us informed when you turn it back on and reboot !

J

[tpfraz]

Jerome, what do you mean exactly by turning it back on?
Do you mean turning legacy mode back to enhanced mode?
Shouldn't it be using SATA now?
Also, I did a test of the speed
hdparm -t /dev/hdc and it's only about 6MB/sec.
I have read some places that I need to turn on DMA for these drives. but when I try with hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc I get an "Operation not permitted" and it stays at 0 (off).
Any idea why it won't let me turn on DMA?

[Jerome Henry]

Hi Travis,

Yes, I meant back to ehenced... If I follow you correctly, you installed turning the feature off, and its needed to be back. As for hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc, be conscious that most of the time, the kernel uses the most efficient tuning for the drive. Maybe could you first try to get BIOS back to ehenced, see if it's stable.
If it's not, you may consider -X option along with -d1, and maybe (last chance trial) -p option (be cautious on warnings on that, you may have all torn out if you ignore messages).

Good luck

J

[rcmikey]

I admit I am guessing a little bit, having never tried to install Linux on a system with Serial ATA... but couldn't you boot the system as it is currently installed, then patch and recompile your kernel to include SATA support? Once the new kernel is ready, maybe try taking the onboard controllers out of the compatability mode and re-enable them as true SATA controllers? This may help with your disk performance if it works. I would guess it's at least worth a try!

[tpfraz]

Thanks for the suggestions.
I have it working rather well now.
I first set it to compatibility mode in the bios in order for Linux to see it and install correctly. I used Redhat 9, I think it was kernel 2.4.20-8. After the clean install I tried hdparm -t /dev/hdc and it was reading at about 4MB/sec.
I then updated the kernel via Redhat's up2date and rebooted. That updated the kernel to 2.4.20-20.9. Now when I do
hdparm -t /dev/hdc I get a speed of about 55MB/sec.
I tried switching it back to enhanced mode in the bios after doing the update and Linux does not seem to recognize the drives, it just hangs after POST. Anyway I think it is still using SATA even in legacy mode.
Thanks again,
Travis