Koozali.org: home of the SME Server

2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?

Offline ghorst352

  • ****
  • 180
  • +0/-0
2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« on: February 06, 2013, 07:29:38 PM »
I have a SME Server 8 box that currently has 3 SATA harddrives, 2 of which are setup in the soft mirror config and a 3rd which upon installing and booting into SME shows up as /dev/hda.

Now let me go ahead and make clear of what I have done before anybody makes the quick easy assumptions as there are clearly common sense indicators that need to be looked at when running into this situation.  Keep in mind that I do have 2 drives that are recognized as SATA, so the system does or is capable of recognizing sata drives.

1.) The BIOS has no option for AHCI.  The Dell Vostro 260 is a fairly new machine that only has sata controllers and no ide.  My guess is that it's AHCI by default and how I know this is that I have like 5 of these on my network and they install as ahci sata on everyone of them. 
2.) There are no options for the storage controller in the BIOS, period, its all factory defaulted.
3.) Using hdparm I definitely confirmed that the speed between the sda and hda was a day and night difference thereby confirming that what is showing up is truly correct and not some fluke.
4.) Using the following command grep -i SATA /boot/config-$(uname -r) reveals the following:
CONFIG_SATA_PMP=y
CONFIG_SATA_AHCI=m
CONFIG_SATA_SIL24=m
CONFIG_SATA_SVW=m
CONFIG_SATA_MV=m
CONFIG_SATA_NV=m
CONFIG_SATA_QSTOR=m
CONFIG_SATA_PROMISE=m
CONFIG_SATA_SX4=m
CONFIG_SATA_SIL=m
CONFIG_SATA_SIS=m
CONFIG_SATA_ULI=m
CONFIG_SATA_VIA=m
CONFIG_SATA_VITESSE=m
CONFIG_SATA_INIC162X=m
**The above data confirms the kernel is compiled for ahci.
5.) Running the following command lsmod | egrep 'ata_piix|libata'
ata_piix               24261  4
libata                157061  1 ata_piix
scsi_mod              144277  4 scsi_dh,sg,libata,sd_mod
6.) Running kudzu this the data for the 2 sata controllers:
-
class: IDE
bus: PCI
detached: 0
driver: ata_piix
desc: "Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 2 port SATA IDE Controller"
vendorId: 8086
deviceId: 1c08
subVendorId: 1028
subDeviceId: 04ee
pciType: 1
pcidom:    0
pcibus:  0
pcidev: 1f
pcifn:  5
-
class: IDE
bus: PCI
detached: 0
driver: ata_piix
desc: "Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 4 port SATA IDE Controller"
vendorId: 8086
deviceId: 1c00
subVendorId: 1028
subDeviceId: 04ee
pciType: 1
pcidom:    0
pcibus:  0
pcidev: 1f
pcifn:  2
7.) I have even tried adding hda=noprobe to my grub config and does not help
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/main/root
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/md1
hda=noprobe
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/smeserver.xpm.gz
foreground 000000
background 4E95D3
title SME Server (2.6.18-308.11.1.el5PAE)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-308.11.1.el5PAE ro root=/dev/main/root
        initrd /initrd-2.6.18-308.11.1.el5PAE.img
title SME Server (2.6.18-308.4.1.el5PAE)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-308.4.1.el5PAE ro root=/dev/main/root
        initrd /initrd-2.6.18-308.4.1.el5PAE.img
8.) I even tried switching the harddrive to a different controller that was utilized by another hard drive recognized as sata and this also did not work.


I am running out of options so if you have any information that could be helpful it would be very much appreciated.   :D


Thanks.....

Offline idp_qbn

  • ****
  • 346
  • +0/-0
Re: 2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2013, 09:56:08 AM »
Have you tried the troublesome HDD in another PC to see if it also recognises it as IDE instead of SATA?
Cheers
Ian
___________________
Sydney, NSW, Australia

Offline Stefano

  • *
  • 10,836
  • +2/-0
Re: 2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2013, 10:13:25 AM »
The BIOS has no option for AHCI.  The Dell Vostro 260 is a fairly new machine that only has sata controllers

please, can you provide model number and/or more info about the exact model?
is it certified for RH5?
did you try to install Centos5 on it?

Offline p-jones

  • *
  • 594
  • +0/-0
Re: 2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2013, 10:32:07 AM »
Are the 2 drives that are coming up as SATA on the same controller ? Is the drive coming up as IDE on a seperate controller ?
Are the characteristics of the 4 Port Controller and the 2 Port controller the same ??
If you put all the drives onto the 4 Port Controller, what results do you get ?

How much of this is relevant ?

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19441310.aspx
« Last Edit: February 07, 2013, 10:41:47 AM by p-jones »
...

Offline janet

  • ****
  • 4,812
  • +0/-0
Re: 2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2013, 01:56:26 PM »
bhay3s

In case it is not clear to you, this link posted by p-jones refers to updating the BIOS to get improved features (ie correct the bugs in the current BIOS)
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19441310.aspx
I think you should do that to resolve your problem.
Please search before asking, an answer may already exist.
The Search & other links to useful information are at top of Forum.

Offline ghorst352

  • ****
  • 180
  • +0/-0
Re: 2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2013, 02:00:04 PM »
I will check the BIOS update but I could of swore I already did that.  Anyways, I just now realized that on another Dell Vostro 260 that i have that has only Centos6 on it the SATA drive is recognized as hdc.  This would definitely probably be pointing at the BIOS as the issue.   I hope its that easy.  Thanks for your replies, I will check back with you once I am finished.

Offline ghorst352

  • ****
  • 180
  • +0/-0
Re: 2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2013, 11:39:17 AM »
The A06 Bios upgrade is worthless for this situation as I had performed it with the same results.  I decided to take this 2TB HD and put inside another SME 8 box I have on my network and it recognizes it correctly as sata.   This issue is purely 100% with the Dell hardware and Centos.   Problem Solved.

Offline janet

  • ****
  • 4,812
  • +0/-0
Re: 2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2013, 01:19:06 PM »
bhay3s

From that link there were some other steps involved. It was not simply to upgrade the BIOS ie

Here's how you can enable it:
- grab the latest bios. (.exe) from dell support.
- launch the .exe and do not close the flash windows app. Grab all the file from the %TEMP%\randomname subfolder
- Get AmiBcp tool.
- Load MS-Axx.bin from within AmiBCP. Modify the entry to make the SATA menu available (change from default to USER)
- Flash.
Please search before asking, an answer may already exist.
The Search & other links to useful information are at top of Forum.

Offline ghorst352

  • ****
  • 180
  • +0/-0
Re: 2 TB WD SATA Harddrive recognized as IDE and not SATA?
« Reply #8 on: February 12, 2013, 01:36:06 PM »
Mary,

I appreciate the response but I made a decision after the fact to have my fastest machine on my network handle the daily rsnapshots of my network.   What still doesn't make sense is the fact that I have drives in that machine recognized as SATA plus I had moved the drive to different sata ports with the same result.  This is a very cheap cheap system that was simply used as a file server, nothing more and nothing less.  I do have one more of these with Centos6 installed that I will try the BIOS update and the additional steps you pointed out but I don't deem this issue important anymore.  To much trouble for me to take these machines out of production to experiment, which is how I feel about it since these are dirt cheap boxes playing sub-important roles.