Problem with ATA driver on pc386

[Angelo Fraietta]

Greeting all

Angelo Fraietta wrote:

> Greetings Eugene
>
>
>>>> Unfortunately system hungs up when I enabling ATA driver.
>>>>     
>>>
>>
>> Yes  I  did,  however  I think my problem was not similar to yours. I
>> found the cause in multiple file systems on my hdd and GRUB installed 
>> in MBR.
>>
>>  
>>
> This is probably not as dissimilar as you suspect. This made me do 
> some more tests and have identified where the problem may lie.
> What I did not mention is that my PC104 system does not have any 
> drives plugged into the primary IDE -- the compact flash is the 
> secondary master.
>
> If on my DIMMPC, I disable the onboard IDE (i.e. no hard drive), the 
> system hangs at the same place - ATA_DRIVER_TABLE_ENTRY
>
> What I suspect is happening is that the absence of a drive in the 
> Primary IDE cause the initialisation to hang. I don't have a drive 
> that I can plug into the primary IDE of the PC104 to prove this. I'll 
> try and get my hands on one to substantiate my theory.
>
I can now confirm that this is the case. I plugged the compact flash 
into the Primary IDE port as a MaSTER (through a converter I borrowed) 
and the the system works. I then changed it to a Primary Slave and it 
hung. There must therefore be some code in the ata_initialize (in ata.c) 
that is hanging if no Primary Master exists.

I need the disk to be the Secondary Master with nothing on the Primary 
port. Am I supposed to raise a PR with this?

-- 
Angelo Fraietta

PO Box 859
Hamilton NSW 2303

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