Re: 2.6 more picky about IDE drives than 2.4 ?

[Sven Köhler]

> > i have many problems with kernel 2.6.10 since it won't run stable with
> > an IDE-device. It's an internal IDE-RAID subsystem. The DMA is
> > frequently disabled, and even writes/reads fail and the kernel reports
> > I/O-Errors for many sectors. The RAID-device doesn't report any errors
> > it it's own event-log. You can have a closer look at the error-messages
> > below.
> >
> > I'm mailing to the LKML, since i haven't been abled to reproduce the
> > problem with a kernel 2.4 bases system, but it randomly happens with 2.6
> > kernels. Let's take the latest Knoppix as an example (it comes with both
> > kernels):
> > - if i boot kernel 2.4, i can stress test the harddisk as much as i
> > want. the kernel does report any problem and it doesn't disable DMA well
> > - if i boot kernel 2.6, after a while, there are the error-message below
> > in the log. "hdparm -k1" doesn't help, the kernel will disable DMA mode.
> > There was a also a bigger problems for two times now, where the kernel
> > refused to write to the devide, due to the I/O-Errors below. I'm very
> > sad, that i haven't the log-lines prior to the I/O-Errors.
>
> You didn't give any information about your hardware (controller type,
> drives used etc).  Please read REPORTING-BUGS in the kernel source
> directory.  Also please find last working kernel version (2.5 or 2.6).

The hardware used was a Intel 440GX Chipset (PIIX southbridge, max 
UDMA33), and a Sis 755 (SiS964 soutbridge, max UDMA133). The drive is an 
EasyRAID R5A.

http://www.easyraid.com/index.php?Products:easyRAID_R5A

> > I testes the RAID-subsystem with two different PC-systems. Always the
> > same result: 2.4 works, 2.6 does not. It's hard for me to reproduce the
> > Errors through. I'm still writing an application to reliably reproduce
> > them :-( Does anybody know a good stress-test perhaps? Sequential
> > reading doesn't seem to do the trick.
> >
> > What changes have been applied to the IDE subsystem from kernel 2.4 to
> > kernel 2.6? What may cause this different behaviour? What does
> > "status=0x51" mean? And why is "error=0x00" although the Error-Bit in
> > the status-byte has been set. (i guess this is what status=0x51 means).
> >
> > How can the behaviour of kernel 2.6 be reverted to the behaviour of
> > kernel 2.4? I already tried "hda=nowerr" in the append-line, but it
> > doesn't help either. Is it a Bug of kernel 2.6, or should i smash the
> > manufactures doors, to make them release a firmware-update of the
> > RAID-subsystem since it reports strange values to the OS?
>
> Dunno, I don't have a magic ball... ;)

So i guess you will not know The R5A, and the Problems of Kernel 2.6 
seems to be controller independant (Intel and SiS testen).
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