# new kernels work with serillel adapters (sata to ide)??

## hunky

I've got an ata (ide?) hard drive that has been working for a few years with an Abit serillel adapter. The box has been sitting idle so fired it up to update it and start using again - but can't get it to boot with newer kernels. Boots fine with the old 2.6.17-gentoo kernel, but of course now that I've updated udev-mount doesn't work with the old kernel - so I have no keyboard or mouse. Don't care really to solve that as I would rather boot to newer kernels.

I get the "VFS: Cannot open root device "sda5" or unknown-block(0,0)" error message during boot. 

I've poked around the kernel config and saw some scsi enclosure settings and various other promising looking options but they didn't get me anywhere. Anyone know how to use this adapter? (I'm assuming that is the problem. I've tried 2.6.30, ..31, and the new .32 kernels with no luck and using "make oldconfig" on the 2.6.17 kernel config.

My fstab file shows root as : /dev/sda5   /   etc..

Fdisk -l shows it as /dev/sda5. But when I type "mount" it shows as /dev/root which seems wrong but has been working that way with old kernel.

Help muchly appreciated.. /Jim

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## cach0rr0

male oldconfig with that big of a leap is going to be sketchy

possible to post your lspci -n, as well dump your kernel .config up on pastebin to share?

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## hunky

 *cach0rr0 wrote:*   

> male oldconfig with that big of a leap is going to be sketchy
> 
> possible to post your lspci -n, as well dump your kernel .config up on pastebin to share?

 

Appreciate your help!

```
lspci -n

00:00.0 0600: 8086:2570 (rev 02)

00:01.0 0604: 8086:2571 (rev 02)

00:1d.0 0c03: 8086:24d2 (rev 02)

00:1d.1 0c03: 8086:24d4 (rev 02)

00:1d.2 0c03: 8086:24d7 (rev 02)

00:1d.3 0c03: 8086:24de (rev 02)

00:1d.7 0c03: 8086:24dd (rev 02)

00:1e.0 0604: 8086:244e (rev c2)

00:1f.0 0601: 8086:24d0 (rev 02)

00:1f.2 0101: 8086:24d1 (rev 02)

00:1f.3 0c05: 8086:24d3 (rev 02)

00:1f.5 0401: 8086:24d5 (rev 02)

01:00.0 0300: 102b:2527 (rev 01)

02:01.0 0c00: 104c:8024

02:04.0 0200: 10b7:9200 (rev 78)
```

and just in case:

```
# lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P PCI to AGP Controller (rev 02)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)

00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller (rev 02)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G550 AGP (rev 01)

02:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)

02:04.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)

```

kernel 2.6.30-gentoo-r9 config is here: http://pastebin.com/m750a86dd

I'm not a kernel guy so there may be some errors in there - this is one I tweaked a bit. Others tried were 2.6.31-gentoo-r6 and 2.6.32-gentoo which had a weirder set of errors - something about not finding CHS and also ata in the output - I don't know how I can capture that though..

/jim

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## hunky

Old Knoppix (5) cds can boot this computer but newer ones can't. Sabayon can't, SystemRescue can't, Sidux can't - so it is newer kernels I'm thinking. Knoppix can usually recognize most anything so maybe new kernels lost the ability to recognize this adapter?  /jd

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## cach0rr0

so looking at your kernel:

```

# CONFIG_ATA_PIIX is not set

```

That's the driver you need, and it's under the "Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers"

You should NOT have " ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support  ---> " selected, which you do:

```

CONFIG_IDE=y

```

Even though your disks may be IDE, they are no longer handled by that old driver, but rather should be handled by the new libata driver (the sata/pata experimental ones mentioned above)

First things first - go in and untick "ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support"

THen go in, select "serial ata (prod) and parallel ata (experimental) drivers"

Then navigate to the correct disk driver, which is "Intel ESB, ICH, PIIX3, PIIX4 PATA/SATA support" as found here:

```

 Symbol: ATA_PIIX [=n]

  │ Prompt: Intel ESB, ICH, PIIX3, PIIX4 PATA/SATA support

  │   Defined at drivers/ata/Kconfig:115

  │   Depends on: ATA [=y] && ATA_SFF [=y] && PCI [=y]

  │   Location:

  │     -> Device Drivers

  │       -> Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers (ATA [=y])

  │         -> ATA SFF support (ATA_SFF [=y])

```

I can do an example .config for you if you get stuck, but start with those changes and see how you get on. Should at least get things booting for you, assuming you have all the right file systems built in. 

Post back if you get stuck. 

NOTE: your /dev/hd* devices will become /dev/sd* devices using this new driver. You should change your fstab and grub.conf accordingly. These are usually the only ones that require a change, however if you've specifically configured other stuff to point at /dev/hd*, you will of course need to update them as well

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## cach0rr0

Hiya

I was bored, and did you a config for you. Note that this is for 2.6.30-gentoo-r4, not -r9, so you should do a "make oldconfig" as indicated below

http://pastebin.com/m1e27b71

Plagiarizing pappy_mcfae's instructions:

 *pappy_mcfae wrote:*   

> 
> 
> For the best results, please do the following: 
> 
> 1) Move your .config file out of your kernel source directory (/usr/src/linux-2.6.31-gentoo-r8 ). 
> ...

 

You probably know the bulk of 1-6 and can do it on your own, but worth mentioning nonetheless. 

See if this doesn't get you better results.

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