[PATCH] sata_mv: improve warnings about Highpoint RocketRAID 23xx cards

[PATCH] sata_mv: improve warnings about Highpoint RocketRAID 23xx cards

[Mark Lord]

Improve the existing boot/load time warnings from sata_mv
for Highpoint RocketRAID 23xx cards, based on new knowledge
about where the BIOS likes to overwrite sectors with metadata.

Harmless to us, but very useful for end users.

Signed-off-by: Mark Lord <mlord@pobox.com>
---
This should ideally go upstream for 2.6.24.

--- old/drivers/ata/sata_mv.c	2007-12-10 18:14:09.000000000 -0500
+++ linux/drivers/ata/sata_mv.c	2007-12-11 12:51:51.000000000 -0500
@@ -2506,11 +2506,31 @@
 		if (pdev->vendor == PCI_VENDOR_ID_TTI &&
 		    (pdev->device == 0x2300 || pdev->device == 0x2310))
 		{
-			printk(KERN_WARNING "sata_mv: Highpoint RocketRAID BIOS"
-				" will CORRUPT DATA on attached drives when"
-				" configured as \"Legacy\".  BEWARE!\n");
-			printk(KERN_WARNING "sata_mv: Use BIOS \"JBOD\" volumes"
-				" instead for safety.\n");
+			/*
+			 * Highpoint RocketRAID PCIe 23xx series cards:
+			 *
+			 * Unconfigured drives are treated as "Legacy"
+			 * by the BIOS, and it overwrites sector 8 with
+			 * a "Lgcy" metadata block prior to Linux boot.
+			 *
+			 * Configured drives (RAID or JBOD) leave sector 8
+			 * alone, but instead overwrite a high numbered
+			 * sector for the RAID metadata.  This sector can
+			 * be determined exactly, by truncating the physical
+			 * drive capacity to a nice even GB value.
+			 *
+			 * RAID metadata is at: (dev->n_sectors & ~0xfffff)
+			 *
+			 * Warn the user, lest they think we're just buggy.
+			 */
+			printk(KERN_WARNING DRV_NAME ": Highpoint RocketRAID"
+				" BIOS CORRUPTS DATA on all attached drives,"
+				" regardless of if/how they are configured."
+				" BEWARE!\n");
+			printk(KERN_WARNING DRV_NAME ": For data safety, do not"
+				" use sectors 8-9 on \"Legacy\" drives,"
+				" and avoid the final two gigabytes on"
+				" all RocketRAID BIOS initialized drives.\n");
 		}
 	case chip_6042:
 		hpriv->ops = &mv6xxx_ops;

Re: [PATCH] sata_mv: improve warnings about Highpoint RocketRAID 23xx cards

[Subrata Modak]

Would you like to submit the Driver Test Cases to LTP ? Or, if you have
your Driver test cases written in C, we can port to LTP and have it
inside the LTP package.
You can also check out the following links for more info, and can always
ping me for anything:
http://ltp.cvs.sourceforge.net/ltp/ltp/testcases/kernel/device-drivers/,
http://ltp.sourceforge.net/documentation/how-to/ltp.php?

Regards--
Subrata
(LTP Maintainer)


On Tue, 2007-12-11 at 12:58 -0500, Mark Lord wrote:
> Improve the existing boot/load time warnings from sata_mv
> for Highpoint RocketRAID 23xx cards, based on new knowledge
> about where the BIOS likes to overwrite sectors with metadata.
> 
> Harmless to us, but very useful for end users.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Mark Lord <mlord@pobox.com>
> ---
> This should ideally go upstream for 2.6.24.
> 
> --- old/drivers/ata/sata_mv.c	2007-12-10 18:14:09.000000000 -0500
> +++ linux/drivers/ata/sata_mv.c	2007-12-11 12:51:51.000000000 -0500
> @@ -2506,11 +2506,31 @@
>  		if (pdev->vendor == PCI_VENDOR_ID_TTI &&
>  		    (pdev->device == 0x2300 || pdev->device == 0x2310))
>  		{
> -			printk(KERN_WARNING "sata_mv: Highpoint RocketRAID BIOS"
> -				" will CORRUPT DATA on attached drives when"
> -				" configured as \"Legacy\".  BEWARE!\n");
> -			printk(KERN_WARNING "sata_mv: Use BIOS \"JBOD\" volumes"
> -				" instead for safety.\n");
> +			/*
> +			 * Highpoint RocketRAID PCIe 23xx series cards:
> +			 *
> +			 * Unconfigured drives are treated as "Legacy"
> +			 * by the BIOS, and it overwrites sector 8 with
> +			 * a "Lgcy" metadata block prior to Linux boot.
> +			 *
> +			 * Configured drives (RAID or JBOD) leave sector 8
> +			 * alone, but instead overwrite a high numbered
> +			 * sector for the RAID metadata.  This sector can
> +			 * be determined exactly, by truncating the physical
> +			 * drive capacity to a nice even GB value.
> +			 *
> +			 * RAID metadata is at: (dev->n_sectors & ~0xfffff)
> +			 *
> +			 * Warn the user, lest they think we're just buggy.
> +			 */
> +			printk(KERN_WARNING DRV_NAME ": Highpoint RocketRAID"
> +				" BIOS CORRUPTS DATA on all attached drives,"
> +				" regardless of if/how they are configured."
> +				" BEWARE!\n");
> +			printk(KERN_WARNING DRV_NAME ": For data safety, do not"
> +				" use sectors 8-9 on \"Legacy\" drives,"
> +				" and avoid the final two gigabytes on"
> +				" all RocketRAID BIOS initialized drives.\n");
>  		}
>  	case chip_6042:
>  		hpriv->ops = &mv6xxx_ops;
> --
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Re: [PATCH] sata_mv: improve warnings about Highpoint RocketRAID 23xx cards

[Jeff Garzik]

Mark Lord wrote:
> Improve the existing boot/load time warnings from sata_mv
> for Highpoint RocketRAID 23xx cards, based on new knowledge
> about where the BIOS likes to overwrite sectors with metadata.
> 
> Harmless to us, but very useful for end users.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Mark Lord <mlord@pobox.com>
> ---
> This should ideally go upstream for 2.6.24.

applied #upstream-fixes