Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

[Guido Villa]

Hello, 

I have an error as described in subject.
I couldn't find a previous report for this kind of error, so maybe you are 
interested in it. 

Motherboard: ASUS TUV4X, BIOS rev. 1005
SATA controller: Silicon Image 3112A, bios rev. 4.2.50
Hard disk: Maxtor Maxtor 6B300S0 (300GB, SATA) 

This is the only HDD attached to the controller. It is not the boot device, 
I have other HDDs on the IDE channels, but I don't think it matters. 

Kernels: 2.6.9, 2.6.10, 2.6.11.2
I also patched the 2.6.11.2 by adding this Maxtor disk to the sata_sil.c 
blacklist (once with the SIL_QUIRK_MOD15WRITE and once with the 
SIL_QUIRK_UDMA5MAX), but the behaviour did not change. 

Problem:
I create a single partition on the hard disk, I format it with ext2, I mount 
it, I begin writing onto the partition. After seconds (or minutes) of 
copying, I get this error: 

EXT2-fs error (device sda1): ext2_new_block: Allocating block in system zone 
 - block = 22413316 

I have also tried with ext3, in this case it prints more error messages: 

EXT3-fs error (device sda1): ext3_new_block: Allocating block in system zone 
 - block = 61997060
Aborting journal on device sda1.
EXT3-fs error (device sda1) in ext3_prepare_write: Journal has aborted
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_committed_data
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_committed_data
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_committed_data
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_committed_data
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
__journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
ext3_abort called.
EXT3-fs error (device sda1): ext3_journal_start_sb: Detected aborted journal
Remounting filesystem read-only
EXT3-fs error (device sda1) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted 

 

When the disk is formatted and mounted as ext3, the error happens earlier 
that when formatted with ext2. 

Running badblocks on the disk gives random results, every time it finds a 
few bad blocks in different positions.
The powermax utility from Maxtor says that the HDD is ok, and there are no 
bad blocks, actually I do not think it is an hardware problem, but a problem 
with the SATA controller driver (and mybe some incompatibility with the 
Maxtor drive). 

Please let me know if you need any more information. 

Good bye,
Guido 

Re: Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

[Manuel Lauss]

Hi,

Guido Villa wrote:
> Hello, 
> 
> I have an error as described in subject.
> I couldn't find a previous report for this kind of error, so maybe you are 
> interested in it. 
> 
> Motherboard: ASUS TUV4X, BIOS rev. 1005
> SATA controller: Silicon Image 3112A, bios rev. 4.2.50
> Hard disk: Maxtor Maxtor 6B300S0 (300GB, SATA) 
> 
> This is the only HDD attached to the controller. It is not the boot device, 
> I have other HDDs on the IDE channels, but I don't think it matters. 

I happen to have a SiI 3112A controller and a Maxtor 6B300S0 attached to
it, formatted with ext2. Never had any problems. I just copied
200GB of data to it, worked flawlessly. (Vanilla 2.6.11)
Maybe its the Motherboard?

> Kernels: 2.6.9, 2.6.10, 2.6.11.2
> I also patched the 2.6.11.2 by adding this Maxtor disk to the sata_sil.c 
> blacklist (once with the SIL_QUIRK_MOD15WRITE and once with the 
> SIL_QUIRK_UDMA5MAX), but the behaviour did not change. 
> 
> Problem:
> I create a single partition on the hard disk, I format it with ext2, I mount 
> it, I begin writing onto the partition. After seconds (or minutes) of 
> copying, I get this error: 
> 
> EXT2-fs error (device sda1): ext2_new_block: Allocating block in system zone 
>  - block = 22413316 
> 
> I have also tried with ext3, in this case it prints more error messages: 
> 
> EXT3-fs error (device sda1): ext3_new_block: Allocating block in system zone 
>  - block = 61997060
> Aborting journal on device sda1.
> EXT3-fs error (device sda1) in ext3_prepare_write: Journal has aborted
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_committed_data
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_committed_data
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_committed_data
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_committed_data
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
> __journal_remove_journal_head: freeing b_frozen_data
> ext3_abort called.
> EXT3-fs error (device sda1): ext3_journal_start_sb: Detected aborted journal
> Remounting filesystem read-only
> EXT3-fs error (device sda1) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted 

-- 
  Manuel Lauss

Re: Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

[Guido Villa]

Hi Manuel, 

Manuel Lauss writes: 

> I happen to have a SiI 3112A controller and a Maxtor 6B300S0 attached to
> it, formatted with ext2. Never had any problems. I just copied
> 200GB of data to it, worked flawlessly. (Vanilla 2.6.11)
> Maybe its the Motherboard?

so it must be the hardware.
Thank you very much for your reply, I will check more thoroughly disk, 
controller and mainboard. 

I am really sorry for having posted such a problem on this ml, but I was 
quite sure it was a software problem. 

Good bye,
Guido 

Re: Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

[Jeff Garzik]

On Sat, Mar 12, 2005 at 07:55:06PM +0100, Guido Villa wrote:
> Hi Manuel, 
> 
> Manuel Lauss writes: 
> 
> >I happen to have a SiI 3112A controller and a Maxtor 6B300S0 attached to
> >it, formatted with ext2. Never had any problems. I just copied
> >200GB of data to it, worked flawlessly. (Vanilla 2.6.11)
> >Maybe its the Motherboard?
> 
> so it must be the hardware.
> Thank you very much for your reply, I will check more thoroughly disk, 
> controller and mainboard. 
> 
> I am really sorry for having posted such a problem on this ml, but I was 
> quite sure it was a software problem. 

Make sure to upgrade your BIOS, too.

	Jeff

Re: Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

[Guido Villa]

Jeff Garzik writes: 

> Make sure to upgrade your BIOS, too. 
> 
> 	Jeff

Already done. Both motherboard and controller have the latest bios 
available.
I'll borrow another SATA controller, and I'll try again the powermax 
utility, but it's sooo slow (~ 3 days to complete the certification test) :( 

Guido 

Re: Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

[Guido Villa]

Manuel Lauss writes: 

> I happen to have a SiI 3112A controller and a Maxtor 6B300S0 attached to
> it, formatted with ext2. Never had any problems. I just copied
> 200GB of data to it, worked flawlessly. (Vanilla 2.6.11)
> Maybe its the Motherboard?

Hi Manuel, 

I was checking my kernel configuration, and some doubts arised in my mind. 
Would you please check if my parameters are the same as yours? 

set:
CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI
CONFIG_SCSI
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIL 

unset:
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SIIMAGE (I'm unsure on this) 

Is that right? 

Thank you.
Bye,
Guido 

Re: Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

[Jeff Garzik]

Guido Villa wrote:
> Manuel Lauss writes:
> 
>> I happen to have a SiI 3112A controller and a Maxtor 6B300S0 attached to
>> it, formatted with ext2. Never had any problems. I just copied
>> 200GB of data to it, worked flawlessly. (Vanilla 2.6.11)
>> Maybe its the Motherboard?
> 
> 
> Hi Manuel,
> I was checking my kernel configuration, and some doubts arised in my 
> mind. Would you please check if my parameters are the same as yours?
> set:
> CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC

Unless you are loading an IDE driver at 0x1f0, 0x170 (legacy IDE), don't 
use the IDE generic driver.


> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI
> CONFIG_SCSI
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD
> CONFIG_SCSI_SATA
> CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIL
> unset:
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SIIMAGE (I'm unsure on this)

Otherwise, looks OK to me.

	Jeff

Re: Error with Sil3112A SATA controller and Maxtor 300GB HDD

[Manuel Lauss]

Howdy,

Guido Villa wrote:

>>I happen to have a SiI 3112A controller and a Maxtor 6B300S0 attached to
>>it, formatted with ext2. Never had any problems. I just copied
>>200GB of data to it, worked flawlessly. (Vanilla 2.6.11)
>>Maybe its the Motherboard?

> I was checking my kernel configuration, and some doubts arised in my mind. 
> Would you please check if my parameters are the same as yours? 
> 
> set:
> CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI
> CONFIG_SCSI
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD
> CONFIG_SCSI_SATA
> CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIL 
> 
> unset:
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SIIMAGE (I'm unsure on this) 

Heres a snippet from the box's .config:

CONFIG_IDE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK=y
CONFIG_IDE_TASK_IOCTL=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI=y
CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PDC202XX_NEW=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA=y
CONFIG_IDEDMA_AUTO=y
CONFIG_SCSI=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA=y
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIL=y

This is for Piix4 + promise20268 IDE
and the Sil sata ctrl, only harddisks.

-- 
  Manuel Lauss