From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Subject: Re: 2.6.22-rc1-mm1: IDE compile error Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 17:51:56 -0700 Message-ID: <4656332C.7080909@zytor.com> References: <20070515201914.16944e04.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20070516185552.GA4086@stusta.de> <200705240145.38055.bzolnier@gmail.com> <20070524115549.01c0e1ca@the-village.bc.nu> <4656284D.7080709@zytor.com> <20070525011403.20e77ee7@the-village.bc.nu> <46562B5A.2070008@zytor.com> <20070525013817.26061764@the-village.bc.nu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from terminus.zytor.com ([192.83.249.54]:44556 "EHLO terminus.zytor.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751004AbXEYAyI (ORCPT ); Thu, 24 May 2007 20:54:08 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20070525013817.26061764@the-village.bc.nu> Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Alan Cox Cc: Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz , Adrian Bunk , Andrew Morton , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-ide@vger.kernel.org Alan Cox wrote: >> The question I'm asking is: do you think it's better to remove this from >> hd.c, or do you think it's better to add it back boot code BIOS >> detection (and take the risk of poking an ST-506 disk with legacy data >> with parameters which may belong to another disk -- keep in mind this >> can permanently damage an ST-506 disk)? > > To set it up the user will have to know the parameters and have typed > them into the BIOS (if it even has an option for it). I see no problem Sorry, see no problem which way? My concern here is with getting incorrect data, not getting no data. The BIOS probe amounts to pulling data out of two tables (INT 0x41/0x46, corresponding to BIOS drives 0x80 and 0x81 -- the EDD 1.1 spec is quite specific that if implemented they follow the BIOS drive numbers, not the ATA port addresses), and hoping that they actually match the drives that hd.c uses. That scares me, since we're talking about old legacy data here. I'm not concerned with what's easy, I'm concerned with what's the right thing to do. -hpa