On Thu, 23 Dec 2010, Keith Roberts wrote: > To: CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> > From: Keith Roberts <keith at karsites.net> > Subject: [CentOS] IT8218 PCI IDE RAID CARD > > I have big problems with this card not working on Centos 5.5 > > If I run Parted Magic (kernel 2.6.32.11) from CD, then the > IT8212F IDE PCI controller is detected OK, and I can access > the WD hard drive on the controller, in r/w mode. > > Running Centos 5.5 I get lots of I/O errors at boot time, > and cannot get r/w access to the drive from GParted. It seems that to get this card to work as a plain non-RAID controller under Centos 5.5, one has to do an overwrite of the PCI controller card's BIOS. It either works in RAID mode, or ATAPI controller mode as a mass storage controller. There one BIOS upgrade for programming it as a RAID controller, and another BIOS upgrade to program the PCI card as an ordinary IDE controller. Well I have flashed the BIOS on the ITE8212F PCI controller card with the ATAPI upgrade, and now it appears to the Centos 5.5 kernel as a plain PCI IDE controller - 100% native. This is just what I needed, as I would like to move all disk I/O intensive stuff onto a small 40GB drive on this controller. So the kernel needs to see this drive at boot time, before the kernel has a chance to load any dynamic drivers. Kind Regards and a very Happy Christmas to all, Keith Roberts -- In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they are not. This email was sent from my laptop with Centos 5.5