Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 196419
2nd sata drive doesn't seem to work
Last modified: 2008-08-02 19:40:36 EDT
Description of problem: I've got an ASUS A8N-E with 2 sata drives installed via the onboard nforce sata controller. When I first installed FC6t1, it mounted all the /dev/sda partitions OK, but didn't see the /dev/sdb2 partition. Attempting to mount it manually always gave the error that it was busy or already mounted. I ignored that and got a bunch of updates loaded, including the new kernel (2293) and when I rebooted after that, it couldn't even boot cleanly, but gives a bunch of errors right after saying something about starting the logical volume manager (I'm not using LVM on either disk). Haven't yet tried things like booting old kernel or commenting out the fstab entry. Must get sleep now :-).
OK, tried a few things. If I boot the original 2289 kernel, it does boot, but still doesn't mount anything on the 2nd sata drive (I have two primary partitions /dev/sdb1 is swap and /dev/sdb2 is ext3 and I see errors as the boot messages scroll past on both). With the 2293 kernel it decides the errors are too bad and wants the root password to go into maintainence mode. If I comment out the /dev/sdb* entries in the /etc/fstab file, then the 2293 kernel can manage to boot. Fedora Core 5 on the same machine, different boot partition, has no problems with the two disks. Here's the fdisk -l from FC5 where they work: fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux /dev/sda2 14 26 104422+ 83 Linux /dev/sda3 27 39 104422+ 83 Linux /dev/sda4 40 19457 155975085 5 Extended /dev/sda5 40 6541 52227283+ 83 Linux /dev/sda6 6542 13043 52227283+ 83 Linux /dev/sda7 13044 19457 51520423+ 83 Linux Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 1 1020 8193118+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdb2 1021 19457 148095202+ 83 Linux
Just for the record, the new 2302 kernel doesn't want to talk to the 2nd drive either. I do see some kind of gibberish that looks like it might be important go past in the boot messages, but it is off the screen before I can really take a look. Is there any way to capture the boot messages short of setting up a serial console and capturing the output on a different computer? (Which I can do if someone really wants to see the messages, but it is a pain - I'd have to find my buried null modem cable first :-).
Created attachment 131492 [details] log of system boot messages Well, I found my null modem cable, and booted up FC6t1 with a serial console so I could log the messages, and I have the feeling it has something to do with the /sbin/kpartx crash that happens during boot. The fdisk -l output later in the log also seems interesting since it appears to show the 2nd disk twice, once as /dev/sdb and once as some sort of /dev/dm* nonsense. I also notice a hcid crash when rebooting which probably has nothing to do with this but maybe should be a separate bug. Out of curiosity, I looked up the info for the rpm that owns /sbin/kpartx and when that printed nothing but apparent gibberish, I followed the URL it gives to another web page, also full of total gibberish, but with an FAQ link, so I clicked on the FAQ only to discover they forgot the most fundamental FAQ of all: "What in the blue blazes is this junk?" - it is still all gibberish to me :-).
Created attachment 132036 [details] new log of boot with 2356 kernel With latest 2356 kernel I don't get as many errors about the sdb drive showing up, but I do get more things crashing duriing boot (now a recursive lock in device-mapper).
And the system still can't talk to the /dev/sdb drive. I tried re-enabling the entries in fstab and it drops into single user again at boot time with errors about the 2nd disk, so fewer error messages in the boot log doesn't mean fewer errors :-).
Created attachment 132516 [details] yet another boot log for 2401 kernel this time Its getting closer and closer to test2 time and the kernel seems to be getting worse (at least on this system). I still get the recursive lock bug, and now get additional kernel errors later in the boot and /dev/sdb still won't talk to me and all these weird /dev/dm* things show up, so I'm bumping the priority to high for this since these all seem like pretty serious problems from where I sit :-).
Well, I had problems with my system and have now gotten it running again with a new motherboard and the latest FC6 test 2, and none of these problems show up anymore. Maybe test2 is better, maybe it was just the motherboard going (but both boards have the same chipset controlling the same sata drives - was an ASUS A8N-E, is a Biostar TForce4U). For whatever reason, looks like problem is gone.
I also have an ASUS motherboard with two SATA drives and I have not been able to get any version of FC6 to work on it since FC6T1 (which I could not use for other reasons.) I used DBAN to wipe the first 5% of the two drives, installed FC6_64 from the DVD with absolute minimum packages, and after rebooting after finishing the install the system hangs on startup... I don't even see a GRUB: prompt. (On FC6T3 it used to hang at the GRUB: prompt where it would not accept any input.) I'm not sure how to actually debug this one. The system will boot and run a FC6 LiveSpin CD no problem.
Hello, I'm reviewing this bug as part of the kernel bug triage project, an attempt to isolate current bugs in the Fedora kernel. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KernelBugTriage I am CC'ing myself to this bug, however this version of Fedora is no longer maintained. Please attempt to reproduce this bug with a current version of Fedora (presently Fedora 8). If the bug no longer exists, please close the bug or I'll do so in a few days if there is no further information lodged. Thanks for using Fedora!