[GLLUG] Centos 5 SATA JMicron JMB361

[Ken Smith]

Hi All,

I posted this on the Centos list but didn't get much response. I wonder 
if anyone here can help with a strange issue with a JMicron SATA 
controller on an old 2.6.18 Centos Kernel.

I'm helping a colleague who has moved a Centos 5 install on an IDE disk 
to system with a Foxconn M'board. He needs more disk space than the IDE 
interfaces of the previous motherboard can provide. His idea is to use 
the SATA interface that's on the Foxconn.

The thing boots OK and then gets into a loop trying to start the 
interfaces to the SATA disks. Oceans of stuff like this in /var/log/messages

Aug  7 04:23:32 filestore kernel: ata1: hard resetting link
Aug  7 04:23:32 filestore kernel: ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 
113 SControl 310)
Aug  7 04:23:32 filestore kernel: ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33
Aug  7 04:23:32 filestore kernel: ata1.01: configured for UDMA/33
Aug  7 04:23:32 filestore kernel: ata1: EH complete
Aug  7 04:24:02 filestore kernel: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 
SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
Aug  7 04:24:02 filestore kernel: ata1.00: cmd 
25/00:08:00:88:e0/00:00:e8:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 in
Aug  7 04:24:02 filestore kernel:          res 
40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
Aug  7 04:24:02 filestore kernel: ata1.00: status: { DRDY }


I have limited the SATA speed to 1.5G with a kernel param in Grub to see 
if that helps.

After a few hours the thing seems to settle down and can see this

cat /proc/partitions | grep sd

    8     0 1953514584 sda
    8    16 1953514584 sdb
    8    32 1953514584 sdc

But the devices are non-functional. eg:-

smartctl -a /dev/sda

Smartctl open device: /dev/sda failed: No such device

and

fdisk  /dev/sda

Unable to open /dev/sda

So I reckon the JMicron JMB361 controller [02:00.0 SATA controller: 
JMicron Technology Corp. JMB361 AHCI/IDE (rev 02)] is not something that 
Centos 5 is very keen on.

Its loaded the ahci module for it

uname says

Linux filestore 2.6.18-411.el5 #1 SMP Mon Jul 11 18:16:41 CDT 2016 i686 
i686 i386 GNU/Linux

This thread -> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=462425 <- 
suggests that a fix may have been backported from 2.6.27

Does this look familiar to anyone? And is there a workaround or would I 
be best to swap in a better SATA controller in there?

Would Centos 6 work with the JMicron? Suggestions??

Thanks in advance

Ken






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