Message-ID: <3F0DE8CF.9060808@mvista.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 15:29:35 -0700
From: Steven Dake <sdake@mvista.com>
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To: Samuel Flory <sflory@rackable.com>
CC: Chad Kitching <CKitching@powerlandcomputers.com>,
       Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <B.Zolnierkiewicz@elka.pw.edu.pl>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, andre@linux-ide.org, frankt@promise.com
Subject: Re: IDE/Promise 20276 FastTrack RAID Doesn't work in 2.4.21, patchattached
 to fix
References: <18DFD6B776308241A200853F3F83D507279B@pl6w2kex.lan.powerlandcomputers.com> <3F0DE61B.1020207@rackable.com>
In-Reply-To: <3F0DE61B.1020207@rackable.com>
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Even with special fasttrack feature enabled, my disk devices on the 
PDC20276 is not found.  There is code in pci-setup.c which blocks other 
PDC controllers, why not the 20276?  Is that code for some other 
purpose, or orthagonal to the force option?

Thanks
-steve

Samuel Flory wrote:

> Chad Kitching wrote:
>
>> I don't know.  That seemed to have changed the option from merely 
>> mystifying to down right confusing.  By that wording, does that 
>> feature override it into being a plain IDE controller, or an IDE RAID 
>> controller?  The new name seems to imply the former, while the 
>> mentions of ataraid suggest the latter.
>>
>> Despite the grammatical errors, pdc202xx.c's comments perhaps 
>> describe it better.
>> * Linux kernel will misunderstand FastTrak ATA-RAID series as Ultra
>> * IDE Controller, UNLESS you enable "CONFIG_PDC202XX_FORCE"
>> * That's you can use FastTrak ATA-RAID controllers as IDE controllers.
>>  
>>
>
>  I stopped reading the comments as they made my brain hurt more than 
> reading the ide driver code;-)
>
>> If this is true, may I suggest something more along the lines of:
>>
>> Ignore FastTrak BIOS and configure controller for RAID
>> CONFIG_PDC202XX_FORCE
>>  Forces the driver to use the ATA-RAID capabilities, overriding the
>>  BIOS configuration of the controller. Do not enable if you are
>>  using Promise's binary module.  This option is compatible with the 
>>  ataraid driver.
>>
>
>  This is completely wrong in my experience.  In many configs linux's 
> ide driver will ignore the controller entirely without  
> CONFIG_PDC202XX_FORCE.  In these cases you can't use the disk as 
> either ide disks, or ataraid disks.  (Keep in mind you can access the 
> raw disk even if ataraid is loaded.)  This seems to be true of the 
> enbedded promise controllers found on intel and tyan boards.  A few 
> newer intel boards will allow you to toggle between ataraid, and ide 
> modes in the bios.  In this case you don't need CONFIG_PDC202XX_FORCE 
> to see the drives.
>
>>
>> If the Linux driver has the same limitation in regards to using 
>> CD-ROM drives on the controller while it's in RAID mode as the 
>> Windows drivers do, it may be useful to mention the fact that the 
>> option is incompatible with CD-ROM drives attached to the controller.
>>
>> Of course, maybe it means the complete opposite, and I'm reading 
>> everything wrong, in which case, there are some comments you may want 
>> to fix, too.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Samuel Flory
>> Sent: July 10, 2003 4:11 PM
>> Subject: Re: IDE/Promise 20276 FastTrack RAID Doesn't work in 2.4.21,
>> patchattached to fix
>>
>>
>> Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz wrote:
>>
>>  
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Do you have "Special FastTrak Feature" enabled?
>>>   
>>
>>  
>> Can we change the option to something that makes sense.  I get the 
>> feeling no one understands what it does at 1st glance.  This is the 
>> 2nd time I've seen a patch like this.  
>>
>
>

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