Description of problem: When FC6 starts to boot (during the kernel load, before the graphical boot kicks in. I think it happens when initrd is loading ata modules) the system stops booting for a minute or so then gives out the following set of messages ata1: port is slow to respond, please be patient ata1: port failed to respond (30 secs) ata1: SRST failed (status 0xFF) ata1: SRST failed (err_mask=0x100) ata1: softreset failed, retrying in 5 secs ata1: SRST failed (status 0xFF) ata1: SRST failed (err_mask=0x100) ata1: softreset failed, retrying in 5 secs ata1: SRST failed (status 0xFF) ata1: SRST failed (err_mask=0x100) ata1: reset failed, giving up Then it waits another minute and gives the same set of messages with ata2. Then the system proceeds to boot as usual, but the resulting delay is significant (around 3 minutes total). The system is HP xw4100 workstation with an extra IDE hard drive installed (so I have hda and hdb). The SATA interface is disabled. Here is lspci output: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82875P/E7210 Memory Controller Hub (rev 02) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82875P Processor to AGP Controller (rev 02) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02) 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17GL [Quadro4 200/400 NVS] (rev a3) 05:02.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5782 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 How reproducible: Just boot FC6 on a system like this one.
Seems like this is really a hardware bug. Once I fully enabled SATA it started working fine. I guess the system doesn't properly disable the SATA.
I can confirm this bug on a Dell Dimension 4600. It also occured while the FC6 install DVD was loading the "ata_piix" driver. FC5 was working fine. The SATA controller is turned on on that machine (actually I couldn't even turn it off in the BIOS). There are no SATA drives, so the BIOS reports each SATA channel as "Off". When I switch them to "Auto" (the only option left), the BIOS complains during POST that there are no SATA drives, and refuses to boot the machine. I currently cannot do anything but wait another 90-ish seconds for Linux to boot, which is quite annoying on a desktop machine. Please fix this bug! :)
While this is being sorted out, I can recommend a temporary fix, that seems to work for me. Edit /etc/modprobe.conf. Remove or comment out the line that says alias scsi_hostadapter ata_piix Run following commands cd /boot cp initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img.orig mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 Reboot.
I have the same issue on a Dell Poweredge 400sc. Same messages on ata1 and ata2. The machine has 2 build in ide pata channels, plus 2 sata channels, plus an add on pci ide card with 2 pata channels. onboard ide 0 -> Hard drive onboard ide 1 -> CDROM PCI ide 0 -> Hard drive PCI ide 1 -> Unused Sata channel 0 -> Unused Sata channel 1 -> Unused
Created attachment 140367 [details] lspci -v for the dell 400sc BTW, the add on card is a raid controller, but jumpered to act like a regular ide controller.
Created attachment 140483 [details] lspci -v output for the HP xw4100
Created attachment 140687 [details] patch for libata initialization failure I have the same issue on my Dell PowerEdge SC1420. I did a little searching and found a proposed patch for the solution. I rebuilt the kernel from source with this patch applied and I no longer have the issues.
I can confirm this bug on a Dell GX270.
This problem is fixed in kernel-2.6.19-1.2895.fc6 for my Dell with an ICH7 SATA controller. Can you enable the updates-testing repo and try that kernel? (yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update kernel should do it)
I can confirm that kernel-2.6.19-1.2895.fc6 fixed that bug for me. Thanks!
Closing per comment #9 and #10. If you feel that this is incorrect, please retest with a current version of Fedora (Fedora 8 at present), as Fedora Core 6 is no longer supported, and either re-open this bug or file a new one against the new release.