problems with JMicron and SATA

jasiu85 · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Posts: 38

Hi everyone,

I've been trying to install Gentoo, but when I was almost done, something happened with my SATA drive.

I told emerge to install some packets and went to work. After I came back home, I saw that emerge has done its job. When I tried to enter some other command, I got the following kernel message:

mr-simon · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 6:40 pm Post subject:

I've had trouble with my jmicron controller, with the Gentoo liveCD. It works well with kernel 2.6.22 fine, but I have experienced problems with older kernels.

I had to abort my first Gentoo installation because of similar problems. I couldn't get through the installation without my disk going nuts on me. I installed again using the most recent ubuntu liveCD which had kernel 2.6.22, instead of the Gentoo CD, and it worked OK. Maybe this will work for you?
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xanas3712 · Guru Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 455

It's the 2007.0 livecd. I don't know how it is that gentoo cannot have fixed that when 2007 was released. It really is one thing about this distro that annoys me. It's been a year since this jmicron issue started and you still have to do roundabout things to install gentoo (and many other linux distros) due to a problem that was fixed early on. Any distro by now could be supporting this on their livecds, but many still are not.

It makes no sense at all to me.

I just tested it now and it doesn't work with either the 2007.0 livecd normally or using gentoo all-generic-ide.

jasiu85 · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Posts: 38

How about this?

My mobo has additional SATA ports and if I plug my drive in there, kernel sees it as /dev/hda. No fast SATA, no JMicron. Hmm, no problems? Can I do the following:

- plug the drive into the mobo and turn JMicron off,
- install gentoo on /dev/hda
- compile a kernel that supports JMicron,
- turn JMicron on again, plug the drive into it,
- boot the system,
- change /dev/hda to /dev/sda in all required places.

Is it a good idea?

Mike

mr-simon · Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 10:19 am Post subject:

Seems like it'll work, although if the drive works off one of those ports, I don't see any reason why you need to move it. Just because it shows up as hda instead of sda, doesn't mean that it's speed-limited in any way. It's just how the driver appears to the kernel, I believe.

Although, if you really want to move the drive, that should be no problem either. You just need to make sure you update your fstab and root= kernel parameter.
_________________
"Pokey, are you drunk on love?"
"Yes. Also whiskey. But mostly love... and whiskey."

jasiu85 · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Posts: 38

Well, actually there is a difference in speed. I don't know why that is, but before I tried to install Gentoo for the first time, I did full badblocks scan using non-JMicron port. I then discovered what JMicron is all about, changed the port and observed huge difference in speed... Anyway, thanks for the info, I shall then give it a try.

Mike