CK804 SATA IDs are recognized as IDE IDs with SLES9 SP3 - IBM System x3105

Resolving The Problem

Source

RETAIN tip: H187526

Symptom

During installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (SLES9) Service Pack 3 (SP3) X86 or X86-64 on any NVIDIA CK804 platform, when the user attempts to partition their Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) Hard Disk Drive (HDD), the Operating System (OS) incorrectly recognizes the SATA Hard-Drive (sd) as an IDE ID (hd). SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (SLES10) does not have this issue.

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

• System x3105, Type 4347, any model

The system is configured with at least one of the following:

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, any service pack

This tip is not option specific.

Note: This does not imply that the network operating system will work under all combinations of hardware and software.

Please see the compatibility page for more information: http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/

Workaround

1. There is no fundamental impact of this issue to the OS or system performance. If the user decides to have a consistent naming convention for the SATA disks, then they can apply the following steps. However, the following steps also have a potential risk, so the user has to follow the steps very carefully to prevent making the system fail to boot.
   
   
2. If the user wishes to change the device name from hd to sd, then they need to complete the following steps to disable the ability of the amd74xx driver to probe CK804 SATA in SLES9 SP3 by modifying the configuration file of GNU GRUB after the installation.
   1. perform # vi /boot/grub/menu.1st.
      
      
   2. Press 'i' to enter Insert mode.
      
      
   3. Append 'amd74xx.skip_sata=1' and 'root=/dev/sdxy' to the end of the kernel line. According to Linux device naming conventions, x usually indicates which device the partition is on. For example, /dev/hda (the first IDE hard disk) or /dev/sdb (the second SCSI disk). y denotes the partition. The first four (4) (primary or extended) partitions are numbered 1 through 4. Logical partitions start at 5. So, for example, /dev/sda3 is the third primary or extended partition on the first SCSI HDD, and /dev/sdb6 is the second logical partition on the second SCSI HDD. The user must follow their previous configurations of the HDD to type the correct parameters carefully to the end of the kernel line.
      
      
   4. Press ”Esc” to enter Command mode.
      
      
   5. Press ':wq' to save the file and quit vi.
   
   
3. Modify the Linux file system table (fstab) to fit the modification of the SATA HDD ID. This can be done by completing the following steps:
   1. perform # vi /etc/fstab.
      
      
   2. Press 'i' to enter Insert mode.
      
      
   3. Search all devices named /dev/hdx.
      
      
   4. Rename all of /dev/hdx to /dev/sdx depending on your HDD configuration.
      
      
   5. Press ':wq' to save the file and quit vi.
   
   
4. After completing these steps, reboot the system by 'init 6'.
   
   
5. After rebooting, press 'ESC' in GRUB to enter the text mode interface to see if all of the modified parameters on the /boot/grub/menu.1 are available.
   
   
6. Move the cursor to a boot session, for example, "Linux," and press 'b' to boot the system.

The wrong SATA ID should now be changed from /dev/hdx to /dev/sdx now. Check the status of the HDD configuration by typing 'df -h'.

Additional information

This is a known issue in SLES9 SP3. The CK804 SATA IDs were added incorrectly to the amd74xx driver, as well as to the SATA_nv driver.

The workaround is to pass the “amd74xx.skip_sata=1” parameter to the OS kernel in order to ask the amd74xx driver not to probe any SATA HDD at all. Hence, SATA_nv driver would take over the CK804 SATA HDD and rename it as /dev/sda afterward.

Note: Modifying the file system table (fstab) is necessary to suit the change of the new HDD ID.