Re: Need to upgrade to latest stable mdadm version?

[David Greaves <david@dgreaves.com>]

Mitchell Laks wrote:

><snip>
>I have a promise SATAII 150 TX4 sata controller card as well as a on board 
>via VT8237 sata controller on my Asus A8v motherboard. I found that 
>with the debian Sarge kernel 2.6.8-2: the sata_promise promise module is not 
>working, 
>and with the ETCH testing 2.6.12:  the sata_via module fails with
>
>mdadm -Cv /dev/md0 -n2 -l1 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
>mkfs.ext3 /dev/md0
>
>causing reproducible kernel error messages
>
>ata1: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
>ata1: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
>ata1: command 0x35 timeout, stat 0xd0 host_stat 0x0
>ata1: status=0xd0 { Busy }
>SCSI error : <0 0 0 0> return code = 0x8000002
>sda: Current: sense key: Aborted Command
>    Additional sense: Scsi parity error
>end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 94109775
>raid1: Disk failure on sda1, disabling device.
>        Operation continuing on 1 devices
>ATA: abnormal status 0xD0 on port 0xC007
>ATA: abnormal status 0xD0 on port 0xC007
>ATA: abnormal status 0xD0 on port 0xC007
>ata1: command 0x35 timeout, stat 0xd0 host_stat 0x1
>ata1: status=0xd0 { Busy }
>SCSI error : <0 0 0 0> return code = 0x8000002
>sda: Current: sense key: Aborted Command
>    Additional sense: Scsi parity error
>end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 94109783
>
>Note these messages are not caused by the hard drive (reproduced on multiple 
>hard drives which fine work with the Promise controller), nor is it the 
>controller hardware (occurs with multiple asus A8v motherboards) - because it 
>only happens when both the sata_via and sata_promise controller are loaded by 
>the ETCH debian 2.6.12 kernel. If only sata_via is loaded, system works fine. 
>Moreover it does not happen with the debian SID 2.6.15 kernel :).
>
>So I have to compile my own 2.6.15 kernel. So what version of mdadm do I use? 
>How shall I install it? 
>
>Does it make sense to simply compile mdadm  2.2 and replace /sbin/mdadm with 
>the new version?????? How can I get the best recent mdadm? I am using raid1.
>
>Thank you all for all your help in the past!
>Mitchell Laks
>  
>

Just FYI
I am running the *stock* 2.6.15 and get the same problems (ata timeouts etc)

I recently wrote to the lkml and ide lists following up an old post.
No replies yet.

I run sata_via and sata_sil
(I've seen just a few people with these problems - various kernels -
all, to my recollection, seem to have two sets of sata controller
chips.... I wonder....)

I note you say the *sid* kernel doesn't have these problems so I'll try
that. I just wanted to mention that the problem may exist on stock
kernels 'cos you talk about rolling your own...

David