[PLUG] IDE Driver problem

lbrigman at fcpa.fujitsu.com lbrigman at fcpa.fujitsu.com
Fri Aug 8 14:37:02 UTC 2003


We have a test system currently that Drive swaping (running MSDOS).  I
don't really know
if what I'm doing/wanting to do is really Hotplugging.

But swapping in this order.
Tri-state the bus.
Driver rescan to unregister w/tri-stated bus
power down drive.
replace drive
power up new drive
Activate the bus
Driver rescan to register new device.

The IDE controllers that we use have built-in bus tri-stating hardware.

I'm not expecting this to be in general availability but from a drive
testing and manufacturing
perspective would you want to have to reboot your pc everytime you swap out
a drive for testing
if the test is only 30 seconds and the pc boot time is about 2 minutes?
----
Larry Brigman
Fujitsu Computer Products of America
503.693.2051 lbrigman at fcpa.fujitsu.com
Coins 87-7935-2051


                                                                                                          
                            Jeff Schwaber                                                                 
                        <freyley at gmx.net>      To: plug at lists.pdxlinux.org                                
                                      by:      cc:                                                        
                      plug-admin at lists.pd      Subject:  Re: [PLUG] IDE Driver problem                    
                               xlinux.org                                                                 
                                                                                                          
                                                                                                          
                        08/08/03 02:04 PM                                                                 
                        Please respond to                                                                 
                                     plug                                                                 
                                                                                                          
                                                                                                          




IDE's not supposed to be hot pluggable.

I refer you to this expert writing in to say Linux should block
hotpluggable IDE

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0203.3/0633.html

On the other hand, you seem to work for a hard drive manufacturer, and
it's possible you have a system which can genuinely power down the
drive, and I can't find a decision on which way to go on the lkml.

my less than half a cent.

Jeff

On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 10:48, lbrigman at fcpa.fujitsu.com wrote:
> I'm having a problem with IDE drivers but it seems to be partly due to
the
> way
> I need to use them.
>
> I need to boot my system without an IDE drive attached.  I plan on
testing
> an IDE drive
> under program control.  An operator will attach a drive to the system and
> through a UI, start
> the proper test.  We have power control working and this test method
works
> for SCSI and Fibre
> Channel devices.  Access to IDE drives work correctly provided the drive
is
> attached and powered
> up when the linux kernel boots.
>
> When loading the IDE driver manually from modprobe or insmod
> it does not scan for connect drives.
> The IDE driver load does scan the PCI and identifies the card
> and seems setup for supporting the proper devices but no IDE scans.
>
> The hdparm tool fails as it cannot stat any of the devices that show
> registered in
> dmesg output when the driver is loaded.
>
> Two other problems that also need to be solved.  Once I get a IDE drive
> connected
> and registered; at the end of the test I need to removed it and connect
> another device.
> When I do manage to get the first drive running, changing to the next
drive
> always crashes
> the system.
>
> The hdparm tool seems to be the way to do this but when no IDE drives
> register then
> the /dev/hdx device is unavailable.
>
> Thanks for anyone's time that is able to help me on this.
> ----
> Larry Brigman
> Fujitsu Computer Products of America
> 503.693.2051 lbrigman at fcpa.fujitsu.com
> Coins 87-7935-2051
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG mailing list
> PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>


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