amd64/125002: [install] amd64, SATA hard disks not detected

[Joseph Olatt]

Hello Fabian,

Thanks much for your response. More responses below....


On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 11:20:26AM +0200, Fabian Wenk wrote:
> Hello Joseph
> 
> On 16.08.08 22:40, Joseph Olatt wrote:
> >  I have also encountered the same problem. The system is:
> >  
> >  Acer Aspire AM1640-U1401A
> 
> >  I installed Ubuntu 8.04.1 and here is the SATA information:
> >  
> >  /*** Begin transcript  ***/
> >  [   22.014002] scsi0 : ahci
> >  [   22.014087] scsi1 : ahci
> >  [   22.014150] scsi2 : ahci
> >  [   22.014186] scsi3 : ahci
> >  [   22.014275] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m8192 at 0xfea7c000 port
> >  0xfea7c100 irq 508
> >  [   22.014278] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m8192 at 0xfea7c000 port
> >  0xfea7c180 irq 508
> >  [   22.014280] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m8192 at 0xfea7c000 port
> >  0xfea7c200 irq 508
> >  [   22.014283] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m8192 at 0xfea7c000 port
> >  0xfea7c280 irq 508
> >  [   22.652562] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
> >  [   22.653166] ata1.00: ATA-7: ST3250410AS, 3.AAF, max UDMA/133
> >  [   22.653171] ata1.00: 488397168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth
> >  0/32)
> >  [   22.653885] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
> >  /*** End transcript  ***/
> 
> Ubuntu has detected the disks as IDE (P-ATA). If Linux does see a 
> S-ATA disk, it would be sda (aka SCSI disk).


I believe Ubuntu is detecting the disk as S-ATA (/dev/sda1). 
Here is output of df:

joji at joji-desktop:~$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1            240032836   2534016 225401880   2% /
varrun                  385048       104    384944   1% /var/run
varlock                 385048         0    385048   0% /var/lock
udev                    385048        60    384988   1% /dev
devshm                  385048        12    385036   1% /dev/shm
lrm                     385048     45040    340008  12%
 /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile
gvfs-fuse-daemon     240032836   2534016 225401880   2% /home/joji/.gvfs


> >  I was not able to find AHCI in the BIOS to enable.
> 
> I did just a short general google with "Acer Aspire ahci" and 
> found "Acer Aspire 4520 : Configuring HDD mode from SATA AHCI mode 
> to IDE mode" [1]. According it should be in the BIOS main menu as 
> "SATA Mode" which needs to be changed. Hopefully this is similar 
> on your system, else you need to check in the manual of your BIOS.
> 
>    [1] 
> http://www.zimbio.com/Laptop+Reviews/articles/3314/Acer+Aspire+4520+Configuring+HDD+mode+SATA


Thanks for the above link. It is one that I had already visited.
Unfortunately my BIOS Setup does not have a "SATA Mode". There are a
whole bunch of PIO and DMA settings and I'm in the process of going
through possible combinations to see if FreeBSD will work with any of
them. So far, no luck.

It looks like FreeBSD 7.0 amd64 install is not looking for something that
Ubuntu (and windows) is finding on the system to detect and communicate
with the SATA drive. I just wish I knew what.


> Do you have 4 GB or more RAM in this system? If not I would 
> recommend to install the 32-bit version of FreeBSD.


I have only 1 GB of RAM. I will try the 32-bit version (i386) of FreeBSD
and see if that helps.

Thanks very much for taking the time to respond.

regards,
joseph