# Ultra ATA/S-ATA booting problem

## denstark

Hi all  :Smile: 

Well im looking to get Gentoo to work on my SATA HDD. When i boot into the Gentoo universal LiveCD, and pass no params into the boot, it stops on the line:

```
hde: attached ide-driver
```

I know that people have gotten SATA to work, and i was wondering if there were any kernel params to pass through to the kernel in order for it to boot?

Thanks in advance guys.

Denstark

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## srs5694

Please post more details. Most importantly, people need to know what your SATA controller is. Also, do you have any other hard disks, and if so, what kind (parallel ATA, SCSI, something weirder).

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## denstark

Im sorry, i guess the drive is an Ultra ATA drive. The controller that it uses is

Intel  82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers.

And no, i do not have any other hard drives in the computer.

If you need anything else let me know, ill get it.

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## srs5694

One thing that strikes me is that you say it's the only disk, and it's an Ultra ATA (that is, a parallel ATA) disk, and yet it seems to have been assigned an ID of /dev/hde. This is unusual for a single-drive system, and could be related to your problem. Is this controller integrated into the motherboard, or is it an add-on controller you've added to get better disk performance? If the former, and if your motherboard also has SATA support, I suggest you disable the unused SATA support in the motherboard's BIOS. With luck, that'll get the drive assigned to the more conventional /dev/hda. If the latter, I suggest you disable the unused ATA ports on your motherboard and/or adjust any options your motherboard provides to assign an add-on ATA controller the first (boot) position. Again, with any luck these measures will get the drive identified as /dev/hda.

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## denstark

Ok, let me give you a re-cap of what i did this morning to see if i could get it to work. 

First off, i downloaded a knoppix iso, and burnt it. I then booted into knoppix, and went through the installation as normal, using hde as the drive i was installing on. my partition table is set up as follows:

```

hde1 Windows XP 

hde2 /boot

hde3 Swap

hde4 /

```

All went swell, except for the fact that randomly, it would lock up for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. I couldnt do anything for that time, not type, anything. Then it would just resume from where it left off. No harm, i guess.... as long as that doesnt happen when i actually boot into the system (which by now im sure you know i havnt been able to do)

So, anyway, i installed a 2.6.5 kernel, seeing as it was the gentoo-dev-sources current kernel. all went swell with that. 

Then, i rebooted, and this was the output of booting into Gentoo:

```

VFS: Cannot open root device "hde4" or unknown-block(0,0)

Please append a correct "root=" boot option

Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

```

So i booted back into knoppix, and took a look at my grub.conf file. Here it is: 

```

default 0

timeout 10

splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.5

root (hd0,3)

kernel /bzImage rooot=/dev/hde4

title=Windows XP

rootnoverify (hd0,0)

chainloader +1

```

No idea on that part of the story. 

Then i saw your post, so i decided to look in my bios... here is what my "IDE Configuration" Section of my bios looks like (If you are wondering what kind of mobo i have etc, it will be posted at the end. Damn long posts lol):

The simple layout is like this... 

Onboard IDE operate mode: 

[Enhanced Mode]

[Compatible Mode]

When i have Enhanced mode on, these are the options i get and their options:

```

Enhanced mode support on:

[P-ATA + S-ATA]

[S-ATA]

[P-ATA]

Confgure S-ATA as RAID:

[yes]

[no]

```

When i have Compatible Mode on, these are the options i get and their options:

```

IDE Port Settings:

[Primary P-ATA + S-ATA]

[Secondary P-ATA + S-ATA]

[P-ATA Ports only]

```

Needless to say, i have no idea on what to do in the bios, so i left it the same as it was, which was in Enhanced Mode, Mode support on  [S-ATA] and Configure S-ATA as RAID [no]

No idea what to do now.. first thing i am going to do is thank you for reading that massive post. lol.

Here are my hardware specs:

Manufacturer: Alienware (Dont flame me on this)

Motherboard:  ASUS P4C800-E DELUXE MOTHERBOARD

Hard Drive:  SEAGATE BARRACUDA 120GB 8MB CACHE SERIAL ATA HD

If there is anything else you need to know just ask for it.

Thanks again.

Denstark

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## srs5694

First off, you didn't say if this is an integrated controller in the motherboard or an add-on board. I suspect the former, but am not positive of that. If so, I'd suggest you go in and change the BIOS's "enhanced mode support on" option to "P-ATA". If I understand your BIOS settings correctly, that should disable the SATA port and (hopefully) make your drive appear as /dev/hda. You'll then need to change your GRUB configuration and /etc/fstab entries appropriately.

Second, if you cut-and-pasted your GRUB configuration, it contains a typo and a conceptual error:

```

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.5

root (hd0,3)

kernel /bzImage rooot=/dev/hde4

```

There's an extra "o" in "root" on the kernel line. That would most likely cause the system to fail to boot, as the kernel might not know where to look for the root filesystem. (There's a default built into the kernel, though, and if you built it yourself, it should be right, but maybe not....)

Also, when you set "root (hd0,3)", you're telling GRUB to load subsequent files relative to (hd0,3), or /dev/hde4 in your configuration. Chances are that's not what you want, as bzImage is probably in /boot, which is /dev/hde2 or (hd0,1) on your system. Thus, you should change "(hd0,3)" to "(hd0,1)". Do no include "/boot" on the kernel line, though; the file reference to /bzImage on that line is relative to the partition's ((hd0,1)'s) root, not the Linux filesystem root. Of course, if you've actually put bzImage in your root (/) partition, this part is fine as-is.

Third, even with the configuration you've got, it's conceivable that the drive assignment (/dev/hde vs. /dev/hda or something else) is different between Knoppix and your custom-built kernel. I've seen some weird things in this respect. Unfortunately, the kernel messages scroll by so quickly that you may have no way of checking how the kernel's assigning the drive. A sub-comment is that it's possible you've accidentally omitted the necessary ATA support from your kernel. If so, the kernel wouldn't be able to find the drive and would panic.

Fourth, the long pauses you report during installation are troubling. They could mean poor driver support or hardware problems. I suggest putting off further investigation of this point until later, though; it's conceivable that the Gentoo kernel you build won't have the problem.

Finally, on an issue not directly related to your problem: I'd recommend against using four primary partitions for Windows and Linux. On an x86 partition table, that's all you're allowed to have, so if you wanted to do something like shrink one of the partitions (with GNU parted or whatnot) and create a new one, you couldn't -- at least, not without jumping through additional hoops. If you decide to re-install from scratch, I'd recommend  doing Windows XP in a primary C: partition, then creating an extended partition for the rest of the disk and putting Linux in 2-4 logical partitions (numbered 5 through 6 or  :Cool: : root (/), swap, /boot, and /home. (Those last two are optional.) You can then more easily re-size those partitions and create new ones, if necessary. Alternatively, you could put /boot on a primary partition if you want to install GRUB on it and put a standard x86 boot loader in the MBR rather than put GRUB there. OTOH, if you don't want to start over from scratch, what you've got should work, and will only be a problem if you decide to make changes in the future, so you might want to leave it. It's a gamble either way, though -- a certainty of more work now vs. a possibility of still more work later.

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## denstark

Well, i believe ive figured out what i am going to do. I Will not have gentoo linux on this computer. I am going to get my relataves p4 2.6 Dell, and install it on that. Thanks for the help, srs5694. One more question. How can i make it so i get rid of grub, now that grub is on the mbr? Is there something i can run inside windows that will overwrite the mbr with windows-only boot info? I know this isnt the right place to ask but what the hell. 

As for the "rooot" that was a typo. i wrote that all out by hand.

Denstark

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## srs5694

Sorry to hear you're giving up on this. I suspect the solution would be easy to implement; it's just getting there that's proving difficult.

As to getting rid of GRUB, you can boot a DOS floppy and type "FDISK /MBR" to restore a stock DOS-style boot loader.

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## denstark

I didnt exactly give up on it... i know ill probably get flamed for this but right now, im using MDK 10.0. Working pretty well actually, took 20 minutes to set up urpmi and ive downloaded and installed everything i want very fast. If, in the future i can put gentoo on this box i def. will.  Dont worry, im not giving up on gentoo i already got 3 other gentoo boxes running  :Smile: 

Denstark

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