[5665] in Release_7.7_team
Re: ATA abnormal status error
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (andrew m. boardman)
Tue Nov 28 02:00:20 2006
Message-Id: <200611280700.kAS7083X026652@pothole.mit.edu>
To: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
cc: Matthew Goldstein <austein@MIT.EDU>, mitchb@MIT.EDU, release-team@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:39:21 EST."
<200611271939.kARJdLc8028776@byte-me.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:00:08 -0500
From: "andrew m. boardman" <amb@MIT.EDU>
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Hi! First off, with regard to this:
>OLC has a question from somebody from the libraries who has been trying
>to install Athena on a Dell GX270 (unsupported configuration). I was
>told you might be interested in it [...]
"This install won't work on my shiny new hardware" issues are always
interesting; linux hardware compatability is always a moving target, and
barring such reports, new install images would be few and far between.
(Fewer and farther, even.)
> If not for the first line of that error message (the ATA abnormal status)
> line, I'd say the symptoms sound similar to one of the problems described
> by Garrett Barter in release-team[5358] where the initrd image didn't
> include the SATA drivers...
Exactly.
> I wish he'd given us the actual error messages he saw at the time.
> There's a "solution" in there that involves [a big hairy mess]
There's also the force-SATA installer option that basically does the same
thing; to quote the installer:
Would you like to force conversion to SATA drivers after the
installation is complete? This is necessary if you are installing with
legacy ATA/IDE support turned on but Athena 9.4 will provide native
SATA support. [yes/no/AUTO]:
That's not too pointy-hat and might just work. On the other hand, I
think it's really poor that a default install doesn't work on the gx270
without tweaks; we have way too many Dells kicking around.
> Hopefully Andrew will have more insight.
Not too much without enough data collection that just going over and
poking at the machine is the easiest way to deal with it. I'll try and
make a field trip for this tomorrow.
