Re: Repeatable File Corruption (ECS K7S5A w/SIS735)

[Andre Hedrick <andre@aslab.com>]

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On Fri, 26 Oct 2001 lung@theuw.net wrote:

> 
> I've received one report of someone using the same motherboard, but using
> SCSI and having no issues.  I think after a little testing, this will
> point directly at IDE.
> 
> I've made me test file available for more testing, but I think I can
> dig up an old SCSI drive tomorrow to test this myself.
> 
> 
> On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Daniela Engert wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 25 Oct 2001 22:21:47 -0400 (EDT), dan wrote:
> >
> > >  It is repeatable and verified on other boards of the same model.  This
> > >just started happening when I upgraded the system.  The following is a
> > >link to the ECS K7S5A board in question, the SIS735 chipset, and a
> >
> > >  hda: ST36421A, ATA DISK drive
> > >  hdb: QUANTUM FIREBALLP LM10.2, ATA DISK drive
> > >  hdc: IC35L060AVER07-0, ATA DISK drive
> >
> > >The problem only went away when I replaced the motherboard.  I also
> > >haven't had any file corruption issues running Windows2000 on the same
> > >hardware with the same files.  I moved all of the hardware in the original
> > >system to a new motherboard (ASUS A7A266)  and the problem went away.
> >
> > >I have CC'd the IDE chipset maintainer because I can only assume it might
> > >be related.
> >
> > It very likely is. The current Linux SiS IDE driver doesn't initialize
> > the the EIDE controller in the SiS735 (and most likely all other
> > ATA/100 capable members, too) correctly.
> >
> > The SiS735 IDE cycle timing registers have a layout that is different
> > from the older predecessors!
> >
> > >From my experiences, drivers taking this not into account *do* actually
> > work most of the time even if the timing of the layer 0 communication
> > protocol is wrong, but fail mysteriously sometimes. Andre needs to
> > update the SiS5513 code.
> >
> > Ciao,
> >   Dani
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > Daniela Engert, systems engineer at MEDAV GmbH
> > Gräfenberger Str. 34, 91080 Uttenreuth, Germany
> > Phone ++49-9131-583-348, Fax ++49-9131-583-11
> >
> >
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> 
> 


Dan,

If I give you a patch and a test tool kit, will you run destructive data
tests?  If the low-level tool passes and the high-level fails we know it
is not in the driver.  If the low-level fails then it is in the chipset
setup code or the main loop.  If neither fail then it is random wrt the
driver or the block layer above and time to get worried.

Can you scratch a disk of content?

Regards,

Andre Hedrick
CTO ASL, Inc.
Linux ATA Development
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