buggy ATA controller: I can install 4.11, but not 5.3 !?!

[Rob]

--- Doug White <dwhite at gumbysoft.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Mar 2005, Mars Trading wrote:
> 
> > I think you may be on to something here.  Not that
> >I'm an expert, BTW.  If I remember correctly,
> > 4.11 doesn't use device.hints;
> > device irq's and stuff were all included in the
> > kernel configuration.
> >
> > This is no longer the case with 5.x which uses
> > /boot/device.hints to
> > tell where attached devices are. But how does one
> > edit device.hints on a boot cd?
> 
> You set the variables from the loader with the "set"
> command. For example, if you need to add this to
> device.hints:
> 
> hint.ata.0.at="isa"
> 
> type this on the loader command line:
> 
> set hint.ata.0.at="isa"
> 
> On 4.x the hints were configured so that it would
> still probe the ISA
> resources if the PCI attachments failed. On 5.x this
> is likely not the
> case.  However on 5.x that "disabled by BIOS"
> message is gone so it should
> attach if that particular message was the reason
> before.  However someone
> clipped that message from the output so I don't even
> know why its failing to attach in the first place.

I've got a few other 5.3-Stable (5.4-PreRelease) PCs
here. On these machines I get:

$ grep hint.ata.0 /boot/device.hints
hint.ata.0.at="isa"
hint.ata.0.port="0x1F0"
hint.ata.0.irq="14"
$ grep hint.ata.0 /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/GENERIC.hints
hint.ata.0.at="isa"
hint.ata.0.port="0x1F0"
hint.ata.0.irq="14"

So it's already there! I suppose it's the same with
the 5.3 installation floppies, or isn't it?

Or would me setting it manually at the loader prompt,
have a different effect?

> So its said again ..
> 
> Use a different ATA controller. Please. The RZ1000
> series should not be
> used under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER.

I've got not really a choice here. This is a 10 year
old Pentium-1 PC, which I would like to use. I'm not
a hardware expert, but your advice would mean to
throw this PC away? Or can I replace the ATA
controller easily myself?

I have already put this machine under moderate load
and recompiled/installed a new world/kernel without
any problems. Apparently 4.11 knows how to bypass
the flaws of this buggy ATA controller. At least
that's my impression.
Would 5.3 or 5.4 do this as-good here?

Regards,
Rob.


		
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