Description of problem: During kernel initialisation sata_promise gives the error Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000008 RIP: [<ffffffff883285cd>] :sata_promise:pdc_sata_scr_read+0x18/0x1b The machine tries to continue. With FC5 it stopped at udev trying to initialise devices and did not continue. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): All kernels from 2.6.17, tested with FC5, have this problem but I have been unable to catch the problem since it has scrolled past my screen. I have a promise SATA controller but no SATA-devices, only two IDE hd's and one IDE DVD-burner. When starting the installer for FC6 I get the same message but this time I was able to get the dmesg into a file that I now included. So the included file is the error with FC6 installation kernel, but I get this same problem with FC5-kernels 2.6.17 and 2.6.18. Kernel up to (and including) 2.6.16 works perfectly.
Created attachment 139447 [details] Dmesg that shows the error that occured
I have what looks like the same problem while trying to install FC6 release on a virgin X86 machine (So the 32 bit version, not the 64 like Markus). Discussion of my problem can be found at the found at the forum; http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=659942
Similar problems here with SATAII150 TX2plus controller. Was able to install in text mode on a PATA drive on a different controller with the "noprobe" option, but no SATA drives are seen either at install time or on subsequent boot. The re-boot hung for a long time after the sata_promise errors but finally completed. Ran updates and rebooted with similar delay after modprobe, but seens to be permanently hung at "Bringing up interface eth0:".
Work-around was to boot CentOS4 from another disk (could have used rescue disk) and edit /etc/modprobe.conf adding a line install sata_promise /bin/true to disable the module. This does not help those who need to use the controller, nor get me access to the 250G SATA disk on the TX2plus, but does get FC6 to boot. BTW - this is a 32-bit install on an Athlon processor. Also, during install the text screen fonts changed to something that looked like Cyrillic around the time the problem was encountered. Have seen references to such font problems in other references to similar sata_promise driver issues.
Bug is still present in kernel release 2.6.18-1.2849.fc6.
this is the same as bug 199142
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 199142 ***