[SOLVED] SATA HD not recognized

[Ferns]

Hi,

I have a Fit-Pc2 (www.fit-pc2.com) and I have tried to install TC 2.4.1 on it. However, TC does not recognize the (SATA) harddisk. I am still pretty much a newbie when it comes to Linux and I'm not sure how to find/correct what is wrong. Previous versions of TC also do not work (tested 2.3.1 and 2.2). I ran TC LiveUSB to test and the mount tool does not recognize the HD. fdisk -l does not list the HD either. By the way: Ubuntu still runs perfectly from the HD and the HD has ext3 partitions.
Any thoughts?

[danielibarnes]

I've had a problem similar to yours before. There is a BIOS setting which may help. It varies from system to system, but there is typically an option for the SATA controller which switches between two settings.  The settings may be labelled SATA, RAID, AHCI, or IDE. Find your setting and toggle it to whatever other choice you are offered.

[Ferns]

Hm, no success 
The only feature offered in the BIOS is to enable or disable 32 bit IDE data transfers and this switch has no effect.

I tried TC 1.4.3 and behold: success!! So I guess there is a change between kernel 2.6.26-tinycore (for TC 1.4.3) and 2.6.29.1-tinycore (for TC 2.x). I'm glad I found a TC that works, but how to find the difference and fix it?

[curaga]

Puzzling, since between 1.x and 2.x ata drivers were only added, not removed.

In 1.x, try "lspci -k" and see what it lists for your IDE controller.

[Ferns]

I attached the results for TC 1.4.3 and TC 2.4.1.

TC 1.4.3:

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) IDE Controller (rev 07)

TC 2.4.1:

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) IDE Controller (rev 07)
   Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 8119

Doesn't look funny to me...

Update: I tried the Ubuntu 9.04 liveCD which uses kernel 2.6.28.11-generic and the lspci -k returns
 the kernel module in use as pata_sch. Can I somehow check if this kernel module isn't available in TC2.x?

[Ferns]

Status Update:

It looks like the Atom Z530 with the Poulsbo US15 results in unrecongized harddisks in kernel 2.6.29.1. The solution is to recompile the kernel with CONFIG_PATA_SCH=y.

[Jason W]

Would that also work when built as a module?  If so, then an extension could be made.

[Ferns]

I think the module must be part of the boot (bzImage/tinycore.gz) because otherwise the harddisk will not be recognized and therefore the tce cannot be found.

[Jason W]

Yeah, to find the tce directory the module would have to be remastered into tinycore.gz, or built into the kernel.

But with a module extension it would at least make the hardware available for the TC 2.x series.

[Ferns]

I succesfully rebuilt tyhe kernel to include the CONFIG_PATA_SCH switch. I propose this option will also be set in future versions of TC (2.4.2 or 2.5), especially because more netbooks and low-power mini-PCs will use this chipset.

[curaga]

I succesfully rebuilt tyhe kernel to include the CONFIG_PATA_SCH switch. I propose this option will also be set in future versions of TC (2.4.2 or 2.5), especially because more netbooks and low-power mini-PCs will use this chipset.

Note taken.