Description of problem: The sata optical drives on Dell poweredge PET105 platform is connected to the sata controller on a CK804 nvidia chipset. The sata driver for this chipset i.e. sata_nv does not work properly with sata optical drives if the system is loaded with more than 4Gb system memory. Analysis till now: sata_nv driver has implemented adma mode in the driver by default. Since the ATAPI interface uses the legacy interface for I/O, the coexistance of adma capable disks and non-adma capable ATAPI drives is causing the driver to break with system memory greater than 4GB. Workarounds/Fixes explored till now: - passing adma=0 option as the module parameter solved the problem since the adma mode got disabled in the driver and every device is interacted with the legacy interface. Please also refer the upstream comments since this bug is still upstream. http://ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0712.2/1716.html Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): RHEL5.1 kernel-2.6.18-53.el5 How reproducible: Often. Steps to Reproduce: 1.Take PET105 or any system with CK804 chipset. 2.Load system with greater than 4GB memory. 3.Attach sata optical drives to the internal sata ports. 4.Try doing CD install of RHEL5.1 or use the optical drive after OS install. Actual results: SATA optical drive does not work. Expected results: SATA optical drive should work with greater than 4Gb system memory as well. Additional info:
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Jeff have given a devel ACK. This is a problem for Dell PoiwerEdge servers and should be fixed in 5.2. Raising exception.
Per Ron Pacheco, we don't have a patch for this yet. He is recommending pushing to 5.3. I agree. Removing exception request. We can entertain taking this into 5.2 if a patch becomes available, is mundane and testable.
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
I have found that the SATA DVD chipset on the R905 can be used to install RHEL 4.6 by passing it "linux all-generic-ide" at boot up. I have not tested it with the PET105, but it may solve that issue as well
The RHEL5.3 sata update included a change to sata_nv to disable adma by default for this chipset, so this should work with 2.6.18-109.el5 or later kernel.
Updating PM score.
Shyam, Have you tried this on RHEL5.3? This should no longer be a problem, please confirm? Thank you.
I am closing this as a duplicate of BZ 442906, please re-open if necessary. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 442906 ***