usb v1.1 external 2.0" hard disk problems with FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE

[Jesse Guardiani]

Bruce M Simpson wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 03:59:46PM -0500, Jesse Guardiani wrote:
>> I'm running FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE. I just bought a generic
>> USB 1.1/2.0/firewire external drive enclosure for my 32gb
>> Travelstar 12.5mm hard drive.
> 
> I began hacking a uata (USB->ATA) bridge driver with sos's help today.
> 
> It might help you.

I seriously doubt it. :) I don't mind C coding a bit, but I'm afraid
I don't know where to start here.

Can anyone walk me through a low level troubleshooting process? Do I
have to have CAMDEBUG in my kernel? (not a problem if I DO, but I don't
right now)

I'd personally like to know why the /dev/da0sN device isn't being created.
I think identifying the reason for it not being created 


> Some of the cheaper enclosures use USB->ATA bridge
> chips which aren't handled by the standard umass driver.

Might be the case here. Windows XP detects it as a "USB to ATAPI" bridge
though. The Coolmax Gemini enclosure (the one that works with FreeBSD)
is detected by Windows XP as a genuine "USB to IDE" device.


> Before anyone asks, these are evil, and don't talk SCSI/UFI/etc, they
> talk ATA task file register over USB, so branching off ata is more
> appropriate; I should be able to leverage most of the existing ATAng
> code base for this.

Well, I'd be happy to help you test if we can somehow confirm that my
device is indeed one of these ugly USB->ATA devices. I'm not 100% convinced
though. Take a look at these two posts that have exactly the same dmesg:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2003-August/008504.html

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hardware/2003-July/000393.html

The last fellow shows that his drive works perfectly under Linux with SCSI
emulation.

-- 
Jesse Guardiani, Systems Administrator
WingNET Internet Services,
P.O. Box 2605 // Cleveland, TN 37320-2605
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