# VT8251 - no drives detected

## Vernon Fort

Using a Asus a8v-mx (amd64 3200+) - no drives OR sata interface is detected.  the lspci displays the following:

mail ~ # lspci

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge

0000:00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge

0000:00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge

0000:00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge

0000:00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge

0000:00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge

0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI bridge [K8T800/K8T890 South]

0000:00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8251 AHCI/SATA 4-Port Controller

0000:00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 07)

0000:00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)

0000:00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)

0000:00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)

0000:00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)

0000:00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 90)

0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown device 3287

0000:00:11.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8251 Ultra VLINK Controller

0000:00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 7c)

0000:00:13.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8251 PCI to PCIE Bridge

0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration

0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map

0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller

0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control

0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. S3 Unichrome Pro VGA Adapter (rev 01)

0000:02:00.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8251 PCIE Root Port

0000:02:00.1 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8251 PCIE Root Port

It shows the the VT825 but NO drives are ever detected.  I've tried noapic or acpi=no.  I installed on an IDE drive in hopes to update to the latest kernel but still nothing.  I switched the  BIOS to AHIC or SATA, again, nothing.

Anyone have any idea on how to get the drives detected.

Vernon

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## 2lt.chronic

same problem here.... urgently seeking answers...  :Shocked: 

edit // 

This I found in an openBSD release note:

http://www.openbsd.org/plus.html

 *Quote:*   

> In pciide(4), fixup cache line on sii3114 controllers (as on sii3112). Also add VT8251 support.

 

it seems like the bsd guys have the driver working as of mid-october... why isn't it on our side yett?

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## joycea

There have been a few discussions about this on the kernel IDE mailing list. The VT8251 should be supported by the AHCI driver but it is not working correctly when the PCI ID is added into the kernel. You can find a couple of posts regarding this and hopefully soon a solution here:

http://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ide

Andrew

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## xepk

I know this is a fairly old thread but if anyone is still looking to get this SATA chipset working - the patch from the mailing list will work, but I had to modify it slightly to apply to 2.6.15.  The patch is here, hope this helps.

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## pytooli

Hi all,

xepk  *Quote:*   

> The patch is here

 

I can't get it...  :Crying or Very sad: 

Can you post it??

Vernon did you fix your problem?? I'm in the same situation... the kernel can't drive SATA disks.

Py

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## xepk

Sorry bout that....Try via-sata-ahci-2.6.15.patch or via-sata-ahci-2.6.16-rc1-git4.patch

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## pytooli

Thanks! now I can download the patch and I'll try it.

Bye bye  :Laughing: 

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## pytooli

 :Laughing:   :Very Happy:   :Laughing:   Xepk you are great!

It works!!

Thank you so very much!

Bye, pytooli.

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## corychristison

Hello.

I am fairly new to gentoo, and do not fully understand how I would go about applying this patch. Would I apply it while the Universal CD is in session? Or do I have to apply it to the source, and build a new live CD?

... so lost. I hate being a newb to this stuff, it makes me feel so dumb... considering I have a fair chunk of linux experience.

Thanks.

// EDIT:

Nevermind. I found this thread: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-428738-highlight-vt8251.html

Which pointed me here: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-244837.html

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## pytooli

Well, I did this.

A regular kernel without this patch didn't recoignize my motherboard 's southbridge (A8V-MX , VT8251). So the way I took was  to get a ide HD (used and chip) install my distribution on the ide hd. After all I download the vanilla sources from www.kernel.org (complete 2.6.15.2). After untarred it I went to the right folfer were we have to apply the patch (make a locate), then type:

```
patch -p0 < /path/to/the/patch
```

then recompile by hand the kernel (read the many HOWTOS are in the web) and miracle, when I restarted we new kernel, I could use the SATA (/dev/sda)!!!

I don't know if in the next versions of kernel they'll put this patch (for me it works well) by default.

Anyway, untill this, if you don't want use an ide hd, I think you have to make your own livecd....

Good luck!

py  :Very Happy:   :Very Happy: 

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## corychristison

Hi pytooli,

Thank your for your insight. At the moment, I do not have access to a spare IDE drive... I actually just shipped my spare 40GB drive across the country to a friend.

Thanks anyway. Hopefully I can get this livecd to work.   :Cool: 

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## xepk

If you search the viaarena forums, I think someone there posted a liveCD with this patch applied that could be used to install gentoo.

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## corychristison

 *xepk wrote:*   

> If you search the viaarena forums, I think someone there posted a liveCD with this patch applied that could be used to install gentoo.

 

After countless hours of looking, I could not find said LiveCD.

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## ali3nx

when all else fails maybe have a look here  :Wink: 

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## dsd

VT8251 AHCI support is present in gentoo-sources-2.6.17-r1 - i'd be really grateful if someone could test it

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## CrazyPyro

 *dsd wrote:*   

> VT8251 AHCI support is present in gentoo-sources-2.6.17-r1 - i'd be really grateful if someone could test it

 

Works great - thanks!  Way easier than manually patching like I was before. 

It doesn't seem to matter whether I have the VT82251 set to "SATA" or "AHCI" in the BIOS.  (I haven't tried RAID.)

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## dsd

cool, thanks. this hardware will now be supported at installation time for 2006.1and onwards

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