I've got a new laptop with an eSATA port and a new (unformatted) eSATA external hard drive.
Is eSATA hot plug compatible with a stock F8 kernel ?
$ uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.26.3-14.fc8 #1 SMP Wed Sep 3 03:40:05 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
$ /sbin/lsmod | grep sat sata_sil24 16069 0 libata 131937 3 ata_piix,sata_sil24,ahci
The reason I ask is because I expected to be able to plug it in and do an fdisk /dev/sdc and set up a new partition. (My laptop has 2 internal hard drives, sda and sdb, so sdc should be the external eSATA drive, right ?)
When fdisk failed, I resorted to hwbrowser. It stalled/crashed.
I repeated the experiment after a reboot with the drive powered up, ie not hotplugged anymore, with the same results.
What am I missing ?
Thanks
I've got a new laptop with an eSATA port and a new (unformatted) eSATA external hard drive.
Is eSATA hot plug compatible with a stock F8 kernel ?
Good question, and I don't know but I wonder if helping it find it might work. Figure out what host# that interface is on, then issue this:
#echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host{n}/scan
Run an #fdisk -l after, I wonder if it appears then?
HTH, jlc
On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Joseph L. Casale <JCasale@activenetwerx.com
wrote:
I've got a new laptop with an eSATA port and a new (unformatted) eSATA
external hard drive.
Is eSATA hot plug compatible with a stock F8 kernel ?
Good question, and I don't know but I wonder if helping it find it might work. Figure out what host# that interface is on, then issue this:
#echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host{n}/scan
Run an #fdisk -l after, I wonder if it appears then?
I think the problem is deeper than if the kernel supports ESATA hotplug. Even if I have the drive plugged in when I boot, hwbrowser hangs until I shut the drive off. Something is wrong with situation. I'll do some groundwork and report back.
My laptop has the Intel 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller. (hwbrowser)
According to http://linux-ata.org/driver-status.html, Linux supports full hotplug for this chipset.
=============================================
AHCI (newer Intel ICH, ULi, others) Driver name: ahci Summary: Full NCQ support, full SATA control including hotplug and PM. Note1: AHCI specification is completely open. Note2: ATI, Intel, JMicron, NVIDIA, SiS, ULi and VIA are currently known to have deployed AHCI in their chipsets. Hopefully others will follow. AHCI is a nice, open design.
============================================
My laptop has 2 internal SATA drives and they work perfectly, including with hwbrowser.
So why does hwbrowser stall with the external drive ?
Joseph L. Casale wrote:
So why does hwbrowser stall with the external drive ?
Don't know, maybe its broken? Did you try to initiate a (re)scan of the applicable bus manually and then enumerate it with fdisk?
I suppose the first thing I would do is to boot the system without the external disk connected. Then, I would "tail -f /var/messages" while I plugged in the drive and see what the system is saying.... But that is just what I would do.
Ed Greshko wrote:
Joseph L. Casale wrote:
So why does hwbrowser stall with the external drive ?
Don't know, maybe its broken? Did you try to initiate a (re)scan of the applicable bus manually and then enumerate it with fdisk?
I suppose the first thing I would do is to boot the system without the external disk connected. Then, I would "tail -f /var/messages" while I plugged in the drive and see what the system is saying.... But that is just what I would do.
Of course that is /var/log/messages.... :-)
Interesting tidbit... the external drive has 2 interfaces. USB and eSATA. I just mounted the drive and formatted it via USB without any problems. Now hwbrowser doesn't crash when the drive is connected via eSATA. But the drive doesn't appear in eSATA either.
On Mon, 2008-09-29 at 18:27 -0600, Joseph L. Casale wrote:
I've got a new laptop with an eSATA port and a new (unformatted) eSATA external hard drive.
Is eSATA hot plug compatible with a stock F8 kernel ?
Good question, and I don't know but I wonder if helping it find it might work. Figure out what host# that interface is on, then issue this:
How do I find out what host a device is running on ?
Thanks
How do I find out what host a device is running on ?
Thanks
Well, using the 2.4 kernel method of /proc, on a small server exporting some iSCSI targets here, I get this:
[root@host ~]# #cat /proc/scsi/scsi Attached devices: Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00 Vendor: ATA Model: ST3160812AS Rev: 3.AA Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00 Vendor: ATA Model: ST3160812AS Rev: 3.AA Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Host: scsi2 Channel: 02 Id: 00 Lun: 00 Vendor: LSI Model: MegaRAID 8888ELP Rev: 1.12 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Host: scsi2 Channel: 02 Id: 01 Lun: 00 Vendor: LSI Model: MegaRAID 8888ELP Rev: 1.12 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
But that's being deprecated by the /sys in the 2.6 kernels, and aside from looking manually which can be tedious, I just install lsscsi,
[root@host ~]# lsscsi [0:0:0:0] disk ATA ST3160812AS 3.AA /dev/sda [1:0:0:0] disk ATA ST3160812AS 3.AA /dev/sdb [2:2:0:0] disk LSI MegaRAID 8888ELP 1.12 /dev/sdc [2:2:1:0] disk LSI MegaRAID 8888ELP 1.12 /dev/sdd
If your distro doesn't have lsscsi or you don't want to install it just use the /proc method...
So to rescan everything on the 8888ELP, I would issue: [root@host ~]# echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host2/scan
Which is exactly what I use to enumerate any new arrays I configure via the MegaRAID cli when I can't reboot if for example I can not unmount a target.
HTH, jlc
-
Ed Greshko -
Joseph L. Casale -
linux guy