Intel 865PERL SATA and FreeBSD 5.2.1

[Dan Strick]

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 15:35:42 -0500, tony lay wrote:
>>
> ...
> I have a new box that I put together with an Intel 865PERL motherboard.
> ...
> Enough of an explination, here's my question:
> In order to get SATA support I have to switch to Legacy Support in the BIOS.
> Install FreeBSD 5.2.1  #OK
> Rebuild my kernel with Jeff Garzik's libata driver  #UH HUH
> Install Linux on an IDE drive with the new support  #Right?
> Flip on SATA (Disable Legacy) in BIOS #Right?
>
> Now as for mirroring...the perl865 lists the windows driver as Intel 82801ER
> ICH5-R or 82801EB ICH5
> ...
>>

FreeBSD 5.2.1 ought to work out of the box with Intel 865 (ICH5) SATA in
"native" mode providing that you keep ACPI enabled.

(At least this was my experience.  I cannot use 5.2.1 because my Intel
ethernet controller does not work with ACPI and disabling ACPI breaks
my ICH5 SATA in native mode.  I have to use it in native mode because
I also have three PATA devices.  Therefore at the moment I can only
use FreeBSD release 4.9.  My problems may be due in part to BIOS bugs.
Since I don't use an Intel 865PERL motherboard, you will probably have
an entirely different set of problems.)

If your version of Linux also supports native mode ICH5 SATA, you should
not have to mess around with legacy mode.

If your motherboard uses the ICH5R (Intel part 82801ER) rather than the
plain ICH5 (Intel part 82801EB), it supports some very limited form of
RAID.  I don't know if FreeBSD 5.2.1 or Linux supports the hardware RAID
features.  (seems unlikely)  If not, it would probably be a mistake to
try to share the drives with a Windows OS using a RAID driver.

Dan Strick
strick at covad.net