[CentOS] Centos 4.4 install on ASUS A8V-VM does not findSATAdrives

Wed Jan 17 16:40:54 UTC 2007
Don Levey <centos at the-leveys.us>

That may be the way to go.  I'm working on getting a DVD for FC6 x86_64 so
we'll see how that goes.  In the meantime, this link:
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html
has *some* (but not a lot) of info on the VIA8251 in particular; there is a
wealth of info on SATA on Linux in general.  In short, it presents three
possible workarounds:

1. Switch the motherboard BIOS back to "legacy ATA mode" (parallel ATA =
PATA). Complete a Linux installation. Fetch or build a kernel with support
for your chipset. Switch the BIOS setting back. (Potential catch: It's
claimed that Dell Optiplex GX270 and Dell Precision Workstation 360 desktop
units, using Intel ICH5 SATA-I chipsets, don't support switching to legacy
ATA mode. This might be true of some others.)

2. Rebuild your installer using kernel 2.4.27 or later, which includes
libata, desirable since it adds many new chipsets and gives a (potential,
subject to physical read limits, etc.) ~10M/s speed boost to some others
compared to the quite slow 2.4.x drivers/ide set.

3. Temporarily add a regular PATA drive to your system. Install Linux onto
that. Fetch or build a kernel with support for your chipset. Migrate your
system to the SATA drives.


The first doesn't seem to be an option in terms of switching the SATA
interfaces to PATA mode.  The drives themselves are SATA, of course, so I
can't just plug them into the PATA interfaces on the boards.

The second is a little outdated, since CentOS uses a 2.6 kernel and seems to
have SATA/libata capability.

The third is a possiblity, if I can find a kernel within the CentOS/RedHat
umbrella that will support the chipset.  I know I can build or find one on
my own, but don't want to have to rebuild each time a new
kernel/enhancement/vulnerability comes out.

 -Don

-----Original Message-----
From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org]On
Behalf Of Will McDonald
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 11:30 AM
To: CentOS mailing list
Subject: Re: [CentOS] Centos 4.4 install on ASUS A8V-VM does not
findSATAdrives


On 17/01/07, Don Levey <centos at the-leveys.us> wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 10:37 -0500, Don Levey wrote:
> > No go, unfortunately.  Even under factory settings, using promise_sata
> (and
> > promise_sx4, for that matter), CentOS 4.4 won't install.  Time for a new
> > board, I guess.
> >  -Don
> >
>
> One last thing ... try a bios upgrade to the latest from the
> manufacturer

> Already at version 401 (the latest from ASUS).  They *do* offer a VIA SATA
> driver for Linux, and that may help if I can get it on the install DVD.

Will FC3 or later install on it? It's possible (though no doubt a
bunch of work) to hack together an installer with extended/custom
device support in its initrd. Of course then you'd need to ensure the
installed kernel had similar extended functionality/updated hardware
support.

You could always try the latest FC variant until CentOS 5 is available
then try rebuilding the server with that? And with that in mind you
could layout your partitions accordingly so any custom data is still
local even after a reinstall.