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Does kernel require IDE enabled in BIOS to access HD, FS errors?

DISCUSSION M.H.VanLeeuwen 3 participants 5 messages Jul 7, 2001

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Hi,

I have a SMP P166 system that has been running for years with an AIC7xxx SCSI card as opposed to the native IDE interface. The BIOS has the IDE 0,1,2,3 set to <NONE>. Running out of disk space I installed one of the original IDE drives. The kernel booted and ID'd the drive correctly. Kernel version 2.4.5/6 behave the same.

Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
CMD646: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 10
CMD646: chipset revision 1
CMD646: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
CMD646: chipset revision 0x01, MultiWord DMA Limited, IRQ workaround enabled
CMD646: simplex device: DMA disabled
ide0: CMD646 Bus-Master DMA disabled (BIOS)
CMD646: simplex device: DMA disabled
ide1: CMD646 Bus-Master DMA disabled (BIOS)
hdb: CD-ROM CDU76E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
hdc: WDC AC2850F, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hdc: 1667232 sectors (854 MB) w/64KiB Cache, CHS=1654/16/63
hdb: packet command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: packet command error: error=0x44
hdb: ATAPI 4X CD-ROM drive, 256kB Cache
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
Partition check:
hdc: [PTBL] [827/32/63] hdc1

However I can't boot from the SCSI drives if the IDE HD is enabled due to deficiencies in the BIOS... boot "A: then C:" or "C: then A:" are the only choices, if neither are present the system boots from the SCSI card, otherwise it fails to boot.

PROBLEM: cannot reliably R/W to the HD unless the BIOS is set to <auto> recognize. I consistently see MD5SUM errors and FS corruption and other strange FS symptoms when the BIOS is set to <NONE> for the drive and _never_ see any errors with the setting set to <AUTO>. There are no messages emitted by the kernel that there were any system errors encountered leading one to believe that all is well, when it isn't.

What is interesting, is that the I/O writes increase from once every 14 seconds to once every 2-3 seconds and the FS corruption diminishes but don't disappear if a background "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null" is running.

Is this expected kernel behavior?

VMSTAT follow... when copying files from SCSI drives to IDE drive.

More info available if needed...

Thanks,
Martin

The waiting processes are kupdated and bdflush. (I have Alt-SysRq- trace of them)

VMSTAT 1 for the case w/ BIOS set to <NONE> looks like (w/o dd running):

procs memory swap io system cpu

 r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache  si  so    bi    bo   in    cs  us  sy  id
 0  0  0      0  83180   1056  39800   0   0   261     3   83    43   5   8  87
 0  0  0      0  83176   1056  39800   0   0     0     0  119    20   3   2  95
 0  0  0      0  83176   1056  39800   0   0     0     0  116    20   2   2  96
 0  1  0      0  83012   1096  39812   0   0   329     0  196   183   3   8  89
 0  1  0      0  81268   1128  41444   0   0  1021     0  309   275   3  17  80
 0  1  0      0  74464   1200  47716   0   0  3131    27  292   264   6  25  69
 2  0  0      0  67772   1276  53632   0   0  2962     0  397   245  12  25  63
 2  0  0      0  64016   1324  56900   0   0  1602     0  414   155  48  27  26
 1  1  0      0  53924   1372  66608   0   0  4960     0  200   165  14  40  46
 1  0  0      0  42260   1448  77556   0   0  5493     0  232   210   3  35  62
 0  1  0      0  30276   1480  88748   0   0  5616     0  201   124   4  34  62
 2  0  0      0  22580   1496  96044   0   0  3671  2868  307    96   2  33  65
 0  1  0      0  12392   1528 105492   0   0  4771  4852  276   164   5  37  58
 1  0  0      0   3056   1560 114232   0   0  4641  4861  328   200   2  43  54
 1  1  0      0   3056   1588 114192   0   0  5011  4744  281   139   5  39  57
 1  0  1      0   3056   1612 114168   0   0  5269  1728  256   115   4  35  60
 0  1  1      0   3056   1680 114084   0   0  4827     0  271   193   2  33  64
 1  0  1      0   3056   1708 114056   0   0  5268     0  236   106   3  38  59
 2  0  1      0   3056   1748 113864   0   0  3817  3968  315   132   7  44  49
 2  0  1      0   3056   1760 113604   0   0  2955     0  348    63  41  50   9
 1  0  1      0   3056   1788 113940   0   0  4258     0  247    97  41  46  13
 1  0  1      0   3056   1844 113880   0   0  4246     0  281   168   4  36  60
 0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0  2955     0  209    69   3  19  78
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  149    27   2   3  95
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  147    19   2   3  95
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  152    18   2   3  95
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  147    16   2   4  94
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  147    16   1   4  94
 0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0  3613  156    28   1   5  94
 0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  148    14   2   2  96
 0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  150    18   2   4  94
 0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  151    18   1   5  94
 0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  147    18   2   3  95
 0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  151    18   2   2  96
 0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  183    27   2   4  94
 0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  183    18   2   2  95
 0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  186    18   2   3  95
 0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  182    23   1   4  95
 0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  184    18   2   4  94
 0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  185    20   2   1  96
 0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  181    18   2   1  96
 0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0  3852  184    21   2   3  95
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  181    24   1   4  94
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  165    16   1   2  96
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  184    14   1   4  95
 0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  183    24   1   3  95
 0  1  2      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  185    12   2   4  94
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     3     0  195    53   3   4  93
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  183    24   2   2  96
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  184    18   2   3  94
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  185    16   2   3  95
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  184    20   2   2  95
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  191    20   2   4  94
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  186    14   2   3  95
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  182    24   1   2  96
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0  3964  183    18   1   5  93
 0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  183    24   1   2  97
 0  1  2      0   3144   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  173    20   2   5  93
 0  1  2      0   3160   1856 113848   0   0     0     0  160    19   2   5  94
 0  1  2      0   3160   1856 113848   0   0     0     0  158    18   1   3  96
 0  1  2      0   3160   1856 113848   0   0     0     0  152    24   2   3  95

Here is VMSTAT 1 for the case where the IDE is set to <AUTO> in the bios:

procs memory swap io system cpu

 r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache  si  so    bi    bo   in    cs  us  sy  id
 0  0  0      0  82928   1048  39776   0   0   202     3   78    35   5   6  89
 0  0  0      0  82824   1052  39784   0   0     6     0  135    51   3   1  95
 0  1  0      0  82684   1068  39796   0   0    38     0  127    43   3   4  93
 0  1  0      0  82652   1092  39796   0   0   364     0  223   208   3   4  93
 1  0  0      0  78776   1164  43392   0   0  1957     0  331   316   4  14  82
 1  0  1      0  71684   1224  49956   0   0  3231     0  309   239   5  20  75
 0  1  0      0  65376   1304  55752   0   0  2835     0  340   250   1  18  80
 1  0  0      0  55412   1364  65056   0   0  4746     2  233   187   4  29  67
 1  0  0      0  43460   1432  76220   0   0  5560     0  207   181   3  31  66
 1  0  0      0  31276   1472  87680   0   0  5806     0  194   125   1  35  64
 0  1  0      0  21084   1496  97216   0   0  4685   157  234   102   4  29  67
 1  0  0      0  13580   1520 104244   0   0  3628  3328  615   126   3  56  41
 1  0  0      0   6352   1552 111072   0   0  3417  3584  709   123   3  59  38
 1  0  0      0   3056   1560 114148   0   0  2951  3072  577   138   4  59  38
 1  0  0      0   3056   1580 114128   0   0  3086  2940  611    82   4  52  45
 1  0  0      0   3056   1600 114108   0   0  4182  4352  647    94   3  71  26
 1  0  0      0   3056   1636 114064   0   0  3217  3072  701   150   3  60  37
 1  0  1      0   3056   1676 114016   0   0  3666  3840  674   141   3  58  39
 1  0  0      0   3056   1700 113992   0   0  3691  3328  600   102   3  58  39
 1  0  0      0   3056   1720 113972   0   0  3729  3578  639   110   2  62  36
 1  0  0      0   3056   1752 113936   0   0  3464  3627  674   142   6  58  36
 1  0  0      0   3056   1772 113916   0   0  3598  3532  627   102   3  64  34
 1  0  0      0   3056   1804 113880   0   0  3296  3328  610   130   4  61  35
 3  0  0      0   3056   1836 113796   0   0  3392  3584  697   140   3  61  37
 2  0  0      0   3056   1848 113604   0   0  2827  2816  594   105  12  62  27
 1  1  0      0   3056   1880 113404   0   0  2234  2551  604   107  34  59   8
 2  0  0      0   3056   1912 113364   0   0  2838  2816  565   139  40  51   8
 1  0  0      0   3056   1988 113648   0   0  3148  3328  667   213  11  57  32
 1  0  0      0   3056   2032 113600   0   0  2761  3328  612   162   2  59  39
 0  1  1      0   3056   2088 113540   0   0  3061  3322  676   180   2  56  42
 1  0  0      0   3056   2120 113504   0   0  3542  3789  670   137   4  57  39
 1  0  0      0   3056   2164 113452   0   0  3102  3325  668   147   4  49  47
 1  0  0      0   3056   2192 113424   0   0  3602  3575  678    99   3  59  38
 1  0  0      0   3056   2224 113388   0   0  3311  3539  703   134   0  61  39
 1  0  0      0   3056   2212 113396   0   0  3451  3584  615   114   4  62  34
 1  0  0      0   3056   2252 113348   0   0  3675  3840  672   126   3  57  40
 1  0  0      0   3056   2292 113304   0   0  3066  3328  695   162   3  56  42
 1  0  0      0   3056   2324 113272   0   0  3347  3262  628   129   4  54  42
 1  0  1      0   3056   2340 113244   0   0  2755  3072  612   103   3  60  38
 1  0  0      0   3056   2352 113244   0   0  3830  3581  681   125   4  60  36
 1  0  0      0   3056   2400 113196   0   0  3408  3584  656   144   4  56  39
 1  0  0      0   3056   2424 113172   0   0  3758  3840  671   136   2  59  39
 1  0  0      0   3056   2432 113164   0   0  2726  2780  611   108   3  57  40
 1  0  0      0   3056   2492 113052   0   0  2432  3072  659   299   2  49  49
 2  0  0      0   3056   2612 112820   0   0  2355  3072  830   651   6  54  41
 1  0  0      0   3056   2748 112596   0   0  2041  2816  708   421   6  46  49
 1  0  1      0   3056   2908 112380   0   0  2839  3304  716   364   3  58  39
 0  1  1      0   3056   3060 112184   0   0  3121  3840  729   352   3  62  35
 1  0  1      0   3056   3164 112060   0   0  2204  2816  570   179   4  43  53
 1  0  1      0   3056   3260 111840   0   0  2094  2560  684   335   4  50  46
 1  0  1      0   3056   3320 111764   0   0  2867  3584  675   207   3  59  38
 1  0  0      0   3056   3364 111240   0   0   430  2268  857   823   3  51  45
 1  0  0      0   3056   3424 110928   0   0  1460  2560  707   551   5  42  53
 1  0  0      0   3056   3512 110728   0   0  2267  2816  783   592   3  50  47
 0  1  0      0   3056   3564 110448   0   0  1952  3069  897   836   5  49  46
 1  0  1      0   3056   3708 110248   0   0  2424  3145  743   357   3  50  47
 0  1  1      0   3056   3864 110116   0   0  2552  3328  727   430   3  49  49
#1 lore raw

Activating an IDE drive in an older BIOS (newer ones have a SCSI option in the "A/C/CDROM" options) will always force an IDE drive boot with older BIOSes. Older BIOSes are written to stop looking for a boot device once it has found one, and it's own IDE is where it says "Ok, I have boot capability", otherwise no IDE drive, means it passes boot control to other system BIOSes (like your SCSI or NIC cards). This is by default with older systems.

I expect someone will rebut my comments about the kernel (which is fine, I'm not a Kernel hacker--PROPERLY USED TERM HERE (not the media's term) <grin>), but it is my understanding that the kernel uses your system BIOS for actual reads/writes at the hardware level, this way it does not have to account for EVERY possible BIOS out there. (Other OSes use BIOS system calls for this purpose as well) When you turn BIOS to <NONE> the OS does what it can, but the BIOS in your system *SHOULD* refuse to process the call, instead it's doing the read/writes, but not the same way as if IDE was turned on.

My suggestion is that you install the OS onto the IDE drive, let it boot, and use it for a boot only drive. Mount user data from your SCSI drive onto the IDE's mount points. Otherwise, since your reason for doing this is that you're out of space, add another SCSI drive.

Are you getting IDE corruption with the BIOS set to <AUTO> for your IDE drive?

Regards,
Jim Roland, RHCE

----- Original Message -----
From: "M.H.VanLeeuwen" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 12:25 AM
Subject: Does kernel require IDE enabled in BIOS to access HD, FS errors?

Quoted 3 lines

Hi,

I have a SMP P166 system that has been running for years with an AIC7xxx

SCSI card as

Quoted 1 line

opposed to the native IDE interface. The BIOS has the IDE 0,1,2,3 set to

<NONE>.

Quoted 1 line

Running out of disk space I installed one of the original IDE drives. The

kernel

Quoted 1 line

booted and ID'd the drive correctly. Kernel version 2.4.5/6 behave the

same.

Quoted 3 lines

Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with

idebus=xx

Quoted 4 lines

CMD646: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 10
CMD646: chipset revision 1
CMD646: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
CMD646: chipset revision 0x01, MultiWord DMA Limited, IRQ workaround

enabled

Quoted 6 lines

CMD646: simplex device: DMA disabled
ide0: CMD646 Bus-Master DMA disabled (BIOS)
CMD646: simplex device: DMA disabled
ide1: CMD646 Bus-Master DMA disabled (BIOS)
hdb: CD-ROM CDU76E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with

idebus=xx

Quoted 11 lines

hdc: WDC AC2850F, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hdc: 1667232 sectors (854 MB) w/64KiB Cache, CHS=1654/16/63
hdb: packet command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: packet command error: error=0x44
hdb: ATAPI 4X CD-ROM drive, 256kB Cache
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
Partition check:
hdc: [PTBL] [827/32/63] hdc1

Quoted 1 line

However I can't boot from the SCSI drives if the IDE HD is enabled due to

deficiencies

Quoted 1 line

in the BIOS... boot "A: then C:" or "C: then A:" are the only choices, if

neither are

Quoted 3 lines

present the system boots from the SCSI card, otherwise it fails to boot.

PROBLEM: cannot reliably R/W to the HD unless the BIOS is set to <auto>

recognize.

Quoted 1 line

I consistently see MD5SUM errors and FS corruption and other strange FS

symptoms

Quoted 1 line

when the BIOS is set to <NONE> for the drive and _never_ see any errors

with the

Quoted 1 line

setting set to <AUTO>. There are no messages emitted by the kernel that

there

Quoted 1 line

were any system errors encountered leading one to believe that all is

well, when

Quoted 3 lines

it isn't.

What is interesting, is that the I/O writes increase from once every 14

seconds to

Quoted 1 line

once every 2-3 seconds and the FS corruption diminishes but don't

disappear

Quoted 4 lines

if a background "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null" is running.

Is this expected kernel behavior?

Quoted 8 lines

VMSTAT follow... when copying files from SCSI drives to IDE drive.

More info available if needed...

Thanks,
Martin

The waiting processes are kupdated and bdflush. (I have Alt-SysRq- trace

of them)

Quoted 4 lines

VMSTAT 1 for the case w/ BIOS set to <NONE> looks like (w/o dd running):

procs memory swap io system

cpu

Quoted 1 line

r b w swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us

sy id

Quoted 1 line

0 0 0 0 83180 1056 39800 0 0 261 3 83 43 5

8  87
>  0  0  0      0  83176   1056  39800   0   0     0     0  119    20   3
2  95
>  0  0  0      0  83176   1056  39800   0   0     0     0  116    20   2
2  96
>  0  1  0      0  83012   1096  39812   0   0   329     0  196   183   3
8  89
>  0  1  0      0  81268   1128  41444   0   0  1021     0  309   275   3

17 80

Quoted 1 line

0 1 0 0 74464 1200 47716 0 0 3131 27 292 264 6

25 69

Quoted 1 line

2 0 0 0 67772 1276 53632 0 0 2962 0 397 245 12

25 63

Quoted 1 line

2 0 0 0 64016 1324 56900 0 0 1602 0 414 155 48

27 26

Quoted 1 line

1 1 0 0 53924 1372 66608 0 0 4960 0 200 165 14

40 46

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 42260 1448 77556 0 0 5493 0 232 210 3

35 62

Quoted 1 line

0 1 0 0 30276 1480 88748 0 0 5616 0 201 124 4

34 62

Quoted 1 line

2 0 0 0 22580 1496 96044 0 0 3671 2868 307 96 2

33 65

Quoted 1 line

0 1 0 0 12392 1528 105492 0 0 4771 4852 276 164 5

37 58

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1560 114232 0 0 4641 4861 328 200 2

43 54

Quoted 1 line

1 1 0 0 3056 1588 114192 0 0 5011 4744 281 139 5

39 57

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 1612 114168 0 0 5269 1728 256 115 4

35 60

Quoted 1 line

0 1 1 0 3056 1680 114084 0 0 4827 0 271 193 2

33 64

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 1708 114056 0 0 5268 0 236 106 3

38 59

Quoted 1 line

2 0 1 0 3056 1748 113864 0 0 3817 3968 315 132 7

44 49

Quoted 1 line

2 0 1 0 3056 1760 113604 0 0 2955 0 348 63 41

50 9

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 1788 113940 0 0 4258 0 247 97 41

46 13

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 1844 113880 0 0 4246 0 281 168 4

36 60

Quoted 1 line

0 1 1 0 3064 1856 113868 0 0 2955 0 209 69 3

19 78

Quoted 1 line

0 1 2 0 3064 1856 113868 0 0 0 0 149 27 2

3  95
>  0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  147    19   2
3  95
>  0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  152    18   2
3  95
>  0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  147    16   2
4  94
>  0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  147    16   1
4  94
>  0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0  3613  156    28   1
5  94
>  0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  148    14   2
2  96
>  0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  150    18   2
4  94
>  0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  151    18   1
5  94
>  0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  147    18   2
3  95
>  0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  151    18   2
2  96
>  0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  183    27   2
4  94
>  0  1  1      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  183    18   2
2  95
>  0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  186    18   2
3  95
>  0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  182    23   1
4  95
>  0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  184    18   2
4  94
>  0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  185    20   2
1  96
>  0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  181    18   2
1  96
>  0  1  1      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0  3852  184    21   2
3  95
>  0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  181    24   1
4  94
>  0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  165    16   1
2  96
>  0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  184    14   1
4  95
>  0  1  2      0   3064   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  183    24   1
3  95
>  0  1  2      0   3060   1856 113868   0   0     0     0  185    12   2
4  94
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     3     0  195    53   3
4  93
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  183    24   2
2  96
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  184    18   2
3  94
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  185    16   2
3  95
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  184    20   2
2  95
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  191    20   2
4  94
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  186    14   2
3  95
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  182    24   1
2  96
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0  3964  183    18   1
5  93
>  0  1  2      0   3056   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  183    24   1
2  97
>  0  1  2      0   3144   1856 113864   0   0     0     0  173    20   2
5  93
>  0  1  2      0   3160   1856 113848   0   0     0     0  160    19   2
5  94
>  0  1  2      0   3160   1856 113848   0   0     0     0  158    18   1
3  96
>  0  1  2      0   3160   1856 113848   0   0     0     0  152    24   2
3  95
Quoted 5 lines

Here is VMSTAT 1 for the case where the IDE is set to <AUTO> in the bios:

procs memory swap io system

cpu

Quoted 1 line

r b w swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us

sy id

Quoted 1 line

0 0 0 0 82928 1048 39776 0 0 202 3 78 35 5

6  89
>  0  0  0      0  82824   1052  39784   0   0     6     0  135    51   3
1  95
>  0  1  0      0  82684   1068  39796   0   0    38     0  127    43   3
4  93
>  0  1  0      0  82652   1092  39796   0   0   364     0  223   208   3
4  93
>  1  0  0      0  78776   1164  43392   0   0  1957     0  331   316   4

14 82

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 71684 1224 49956 0 0 3231 0 309 239 5

20 75

Quoted 1 line

0 1 0 0 65376 1304 55752 0 0 2835 0 340 250 1

18 80

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 55412 1364 65056 0 0 4746 2 233 187 4

29 67

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 43460 1432 76220 0 0 5560 0 207 181 3

31 66

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 31276 1472 87680 0 0 5806 0 194 125 1

35 64

Quoted 1 line

0 1 0 0 21084 1496 97216 0 0 4685 157 234 102 4

29 67

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 13580 1520 104244 0 0 3628 3328 615 126 3

56 41

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 6352 1552 111072 0 0 3417 3584 709 123 3

59 38

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1560 114148 0 0 2951 3072 577 138 4

59 38

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1580 114128 0 0 3086 2940 611 82 4

52 45

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1600 114108 0 0 4182 4352 647 94 3

71 26

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1636 114064 0 0 3217 3072 701 150 3

60 37

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 1676 114016 0 0 3666 3840 674 141 3

58 39

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1700 113992 0 0 3691 3328 600 102 3

58 39

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1720 113972 0 0 3729 3578 639 110 2

62 36

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1752 113936 0 0 3464 3627 674 142 6

58 36

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1772 113916 0 0 3598 3532 627 102 3

64 34

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1804 113880 0 0 3296 3328 610 130 4

61 35

Quoted 1 line

3 0 0 0 3056 1836 113796 0 0 3392 3584 697 140 3

61 37

Quoted 1 line

2 0 0 0 3056 1848 113604 0 0 2827 2816 594 105 12

62 27

Quoted 1 line

1 1 0 0 3056 1880 113404 0 0 2234 2551 604 107 34

59 8

Quoted 1 line

2 0 0 0 3056 1912 113364 0 0 2838 2816 565 139 40

51 8

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 1988 113648 0 0 3148 3328 667 213 11

57 32

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2032 113600 0 0 2761 3328 612 162 2

59 39

Quoted 1 line

0 1 1 0 3056 2088 113540 0 0 3061 3322 676 180 2

56 42

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2120 113504 0 0 3542 3789 670 137 4

57 39

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2164 113452 0 0 3102 3325 668 147 4

49 47

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2192 113424 0 0 3602 3575 678 99 3

59 38

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2224 113388 0 0 3311 3539 703 134 0

61 39

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2212 113396 0 0 3451 3584 615 114 4

62 34

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2252 113348 0 0 3675 3840 672 126 3

57 40

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2292 113304 0 0 3066 3328 695 162 3

56 42

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2324 113272 0 0 3347 3262 628 129 4

54 42

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 2340 113244 0 0 2755 3072 612 103 3

60 38

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2352 113244 0 0 3830 3581 681 125 4

60 36

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2400 113196 0 0 3408 3584 656 144 4

56 39

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2424 113172 0 0 3758 3840 671 136 2

59 39

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2432 113164 0 0 2726 2780 611 108 3

57 40

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2492 113052 0 0 2432 3072 659 299 2

49 49

Quoted 1 line

2 0 0 0 3056 2612 112820 0 0 2355 3072 830 651 6

54 41

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 2748 112596 0 0 2041 2816 708 421 6

46 49

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 2908 112380 0 0 2839 3304 716 364 3

58 39

Quoted 1 line

0 1 1 0 3056 3060 112184 0 0 3121 3840 729 352 3

62 35

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 3164 112060 0 0 2204 2816 570 179 4

43 53

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 3260 111840 0 0 2094 2560 684 335 4

50 46

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 3320 111764 0 0 2867 3584 675 207 3

59 38

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 3364 111240 0 0 430 2268 857 823 3

51 45

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 3424 110928 0 0 1460 2560 707 551 5

42 53

Quoted 1 line

1 0 0 0 3056 3512 110728 0 0 2267 2816 783 592 3

50 47

Quoted 1 line

0 1 0 0 3056 3564 110448 0 0 1952 3069 897 836 5

49 46

Quoted 1 line

1 0 1 0 3056 3708 110248 0 0 2424 3145 743 357 3

50 47

Quoted 1 line

0 1 1 0 3056 3864 110116 0 0 2552 3328 727 430 3

49 49

Quoted 6 lines

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#2 lore raw
In reply to M.H.VanLeeuwen

Jim,

Thanks for the info, comments interleaved below

Thanks
Martin

Quoted 8 lines · Jim Roland

Activating an IDE drive in an older BIOS (newer ones have a SCSI option in the "A/C/CDROM" options) will always force an IDE drive boot with older BIOSes. Older BIOSes are written to stop looking for a boot device once it has found one, and it's own IDE is where it says "Ok, I have boot capability", otherwise no IDE drive, means it passes boot control to other system BIOSes (like your SCSI or NIC cards). This is by default with older systems.

This behavior is acceptable, as I can as you suggest move the kernel to the IDE and tell it the root device is /dev/md0. Actually that is what I did to a floppy to get access to the system while the BIOS was set to <auto>
detect the IDE drives. Since I only boot whenever Linus puts out a new
kernel that isn't so much of a concern.

Quoted 9 lines

I expect someone will rebut my comments about the kernel (which is fine, I'm not a Kernel hacker--PROPERLY USED TERM HERE (not the media's term) <grin>), but it is my understanding that the kernel uses your system BIOS for actual reads/writes at the hardware level, this way it does not have to account for EVERY possible BIOS out there. (Other OSes use BIOS system calls for this purpose as well) When you turn BIOS to <NONE> the OS does what it can, but the BIOS in your system *SHOULD* refuse to process the call, instead it's doing the read/writes, but not the same way as if IDE was turned on.

But, that's kind of the point I'm driving at if the OS can't correctly access the IDE interface it shouldn't do it at all.

My guess is that the CMD64X driver is broken since the system can write data to the HD but with random corruption. Ditto for reading data. Likewise, why would I see an increase in write performance when "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null" is running simultaneously on another console.

Quoted 2 lines

Are you getting IDE corruption with the BIOS set to <AUTO> for your IDE drive?

None whatsoever.

#3 lore raw
In reply to M.H.VanLeeuwen

----- Original Message -----
From: "M.H.VanLeeuwen" <[email protected]>
To: "Jim Roland" <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 8:47 AM
Subject: Re: Does kernel require IDE enabled in BIOS to access HD, FS errors?

Quoted 4 lines

Jim,

Thanks for the info, comments interleaved below

[snip]

Quoted 2 lines

But, that's kind of the point I'm driving at if the OS can't correctly

access the

Quoted 1 line

IDE interface it shouldn't do it at all.

Right. It's possible that your BIOS may be letting the kernel write. While I don't write the kernel, it's probably best for Linus to answer this one, but it's possible that the kernel is making a BIOS call, and the BIOS does not refuse to write data (which it should just say "no IDE drives are on the system right now") with the IDE setting to <NONE> in your BIOS. OTOH, the kernel may be making calls of it's own or as you say, there may be a broken driver. I seem to remember there was a "bug workaround" option in the kernel for the CMD640 chipset.

Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 2 lines

Are you getting IDE corruption with the BIOS set to <AUTO> for your IDE drive?

None whatsoever.

Then AFAIK, it's definitely a BIOS issue. There might be (if not there already) a kernel option to check to see what the BIOS setting is for number of IDE drives (of course set to <NONE> would mean 0 drives), and refuse to write it. This workaround (if any) would be required for buggy BIOSes (I'm sure yours isn't the only one <grin>).