FC6 Installer won't load VIA SATA drivers?

[Waggoneer]

I downloaded the FC6 I-386 DVD yesterday and installed it with no problem on my laptop.
Today I wanted to do my desktop machine.
Before I get asked if I want to test my media the installer loads some necessary drivers.
During this process the message says "Loading SATA_VIA something" but just sits there for about 5 minutes, with no DVD Drive activity.
Eventually it goes to the installer but where I select the partition etc the drive information is blank and I can't continue.
I think the SATA module isn't loading, or something. Is there a way to do it manually?
The desktop machine is currently running FC5, and I was able to load FC4 before that, so I would think there shouldn't be any compatability issues.

Thanks for the help.
-Waggoneer

[Waggoneer]

Attached are screenshots of the installer.

[Waggoneer]

So I have read many posts about SATA issues.
It looks like either the kernel supports the chipset, in my case Via, or it doesn't.

My question is why does FC5 support my chipset, but FC6 doesn't?
Is there anyways I can pull the driver out of FC5 and add it to a custom FC6 kernel?

Thanks for any help.

[steve941]

boot FC6 rescue and see if VIA driver loads..
that's weird becuase the FC6 kernel contains enhancements and fixes to VIA chipsets, it may be just some weird issue with that particular kernel that shipped with FC6
i had my own kernel issues all were minor and i fixed it by recompiling from kernel.org 2.6.18 with my own config.

[Waggoneer]

I tried to boot rescue mode, like you said.
However. the exact same "loading sata_via" screen came up.
In rescue mode with the FC6 CD it wouldnt start.
What about booting rescue mode with a FC5 DVD, then once the driver loads, switching out a FC6 DVD?
Or will that mess something up?

[Waggoneer]

Ok, so I was finally able to get FC6 to install.
As someone in another thread had mentioned that if they just kept running the installer, eventully the Via_SATA module loads and the install can proceed.
When I was busy trying to switch out the FC6 and FC5 disks to trick the kernel into using the old VIA_SATA module the FC6 module started working.
I was able to install FC6. But on the reboot, I had a kernel panic. It seems that sometimes the module works, and sometimes it doesnt.
About once in 6 reboots the kernel can boot.
The other 5 times it says "drive not responding on ata2" or something like that.
A friend told me I might need to remake my initrd or something, but I am not sure.
Would it be better for me to upgrade my kernel to the development version or something?
Any help would be appreciated.

[CrystalCowboy]

I'm sorry to hear about this. My motherboard has a VIA chipset, and I have been unable to run any 2.6.16 or 2.6.17 kernel under FC5. I am downloading FC6 right now, and I was hoping that the 2.6.18 kernel had the bug fix. I think I'll try the FC6 rescue mode first to see if it recognizes my disk.

[steve941]

yes the 2.6.18 is supposed to have bug fixes
but there seems to be some bugs that shouldn't be in the fedora kernel .. I mean I get usb errors and ive never gotten those, i fixed them by recompiling the kernel ...
but i guess id recommend seeing if there's a testing kernel in the updates-testing or try a development kernel .. you can always go back to the original kernel. oh that reminds me ... you can always go back the latest FC5 kernel - that should work.

[Waggoneer]

My system will only correctly boot one in ten tries.
It usually says, "Cannot find logicalvolumegroup00" or something like that.
Is there anything I can do, once it boots, to load a different SATA module, or a different kernel?
How would I load a development kernel?

[jcliburn]

I'm curious to know what SATA controller is installed on your mainboard. Are you using RAID? How many disk drives do you have, and what type are they (PATA, SATA)? After a good boot, would you please execute "lspci" as root and post the output here?

Also after a good boot, please execute "cat /proc/interrupts" and post the output here.

To answer one of your questions, the current developement (rawhide) kernel is the same as the released FC6 kernel, so that won't help you. You might try downloading and installing 2.6.19.rcX from kernel.org, but let's first see if we can figure out what's causing sata_via to fail.

FWIW, I have absolutely no problems with my VIA VT8237 and VT8237A Southbridge/SATA systems running the sata_via driver under FC6 rawhide. (But my mainboards use AMD CPUs.)

[Waggoneer]

Thank you so much for your interest.

I have a Biostar SFF barebones kit, you can see it here

http://biostar-usa.com/ideqdetails.asp?model=ideq+200ab


You can see some specifics about my rig in my signature. My MB supports raid, but I am not using it. The 200 watt PS in the PC probably wouldnt handle the load. So I only have one SATA drive. It is SATA only, also or I would have switched to PATA already.

The sata controller is a
VIA VT6420

Here is my lspci output

[root@linuxbox ~]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon 9100 IGP Host Bridge (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon 9100 IGP AGP Bridge
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc OHCI USB Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc OHCI USB Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc EHCI USB Controller (rev 01)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc ATI SMBus (rev 18)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc ATI Dual Channel Bus Master PCI IDE Controller
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 434c
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 4342
00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP150 AC'97 Audio Controller
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R350 [Radeon 9800 Pro]
01:05.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R350 [Radeon 9800 Pro] (Secondary)
02:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)
02:07.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 50)
02:09.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

My cat /proc/interrupts output is

[root@linuxbox ~]# cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0 CPU1
0: 2929162 0 local-APIC-edge timer
1: 19 9 IO-APIC-edge i8042
6: 5 0 IO-APIC-edge floppy
7: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge parport0
8: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
10: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge MPU401 UART
12: 113 0 IO-APIC-edge i8042
15: 50912 53716 IO-APIC-edge ide1
169: 1 0 IO-APIC-level acpi
177: 1209331 0 IO-APIC-level eth0, radeon@pci:0000:01:05.0
185: 65829 70445 IO-APIC-level ohci_hcd:usb1, ohci_hcd:usb2, ehci_hcd:usb3
193: 45551 50545 IO-APIC-level libata, ATI IXP
201: 3 0 IO-APIC-level ohci1394
NMI: 0 0
LOC: 2929063 2929063
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

[jcliburn]

Do you see any improvement if you boot with the following kernel parameters: noapic nolapic

[Waggoneer]

When I tried to install, I took a suggestion from another thread to use

linux noapic

but that didn't help. I can try the nolapic next time I reboot. I rather not reboot atm, since I finally got it up. I am running on it now. Is there anything else to try without rebooting?

[jcliburn]

No problem. Next time you reboot, try the nolapic option.

[jcliburn]

You might be seeing this bug. Can you confirm?

http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7415

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150773

[Waggoneer]

I am not savvy enough to understand that bug report stuff.
Though, next time my system won't boot I'll take another screenshot of it.

[Waggoneer]

I am still at the same place.
noapic and nolapic had no effect.
To get my desktop to boot, I just have to keep resetting the computer until the driver loads right.
On average it is six resets to get the system to boot. Once it is up, it is fine. I am using it right now.
A linux-using friend of mine told me I might have to try and make a custom kernel, or something. Unless they fix this bug in the next kernel version.
Here is a screenshot of the boot-up screen where I see the problems with the sata drive.

[Waggoneer]

I just wanted to update this thread, that I am still having the same issue. When I turn my computer on I need up to about 6 reboots to get the sata_via module to recognize my hard drive.
I hoped that the recent kernel update "2.6.18-1.2868' would remedy the issue, but it didn't.
After updating the kernel do I need to do anything to the sata_via module?
How can I download the more advanced development kernel?

[jcliburn]

Try the rawhide kernel here: http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/

[Waggoneer]

I went to that link, but I am having difficulties with dependencies. The kernel needs an updated mkinitrd, which needs an updated nash, etc...
Should there be some repository I can enable, which will handle the dependencies for me?

[jcliburn]

You probably don't want to run rawhide. It can be unstable at times.

Instead, why don't you go to kernel.org and get a newer kernel directly. Make a directory called kernel-work in your home directory, and unpack and build the kernel there... Here's how you'd go about doing it. All this is done as yourself, not root, unless explicitly directed otherwise.

cd
mkdir kernel-work
cd kernel-work
wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/testing/linux-2.6.20-rc1.tar.bz2
bunzip2 linux-2.6.20-rc1.tar.bz2
cd linux-2.6.19
make menuconfig (apply any desired config changes, or just exit and take the defaults)
make
sudo make modules_install
sudo make install

Upon reboot, make sure grub boots your new kernel. If it doesn't, you may need to change the "default" line in /etc/grub.conf.

[Waggoneer]

I followed the instructions, and attempted to boot from the new kernel, however it wasn't successful.
I will attach two screen shots. They are both the messages showing before a kernel panic. The first one seems to be the case where the module fails to load. The second one is different, maybe just a case of an incorrect path to root or something.

[jcliburn]

You're sure you're booting the new kernel?

[Waggoneer]

Yes, when the grub screen comes up I hit enter, then select the new kernel.
Also, the old kernel usually dies right after it recognizes the USB keyboard.

[jcliburn]

I still think you're experiencing the kernel bug(s) identified in post #15 (on page 1 of this thread). It apparently hasn't yet been fixed. I thought it would've been by now.

[Waggoneer]

If it isn't fixed by now, I wonder when it will be?
Is it possible to revert to the old FC5 kernel , without breaking all the other updates, like desktop effects etc?

[jcliburn]

You can try. Shouldn't hurt anything, but it may not help either.

[astonia]

I've downloaded fc6 dvd iso and tried to install it to my amd64 desktop from a usb harddisk just like what I've done for fc5. And when fc6 boots to "loading sata_promise", the blue background disappears and some weird characters appears on the screen. Then "loading sata_via" shows, and the installation process hang there.

Before I tried to install fc6 on my amd64, I have successfully installed it on my t42 laptop using the same harddisk installation method. In there, everything seems fine, but, for the desktop, I don't known what I could do to get my fc6 installed.

You metioned you finally got fc6 installed by citing recommendations from other threads, so could you tell me how you did it or which threads you referenced? Thanks in advance.

[Waggoneer]

Just keep rebooting and running the installation over and over. One in six tries the installer should finally recognize the drives.

[astonia]

I've kept trying rebooting over 20 times, none of which succeeded.

[mcwebbin]

I'm seeing exactly the same problem that astonia is reporting in post #28 on a slightly different setup.

I'm installing fc6 from a DVD. At the first prompt, I type either "linux mediacheck" or "linux i686 noapic nolapic" (the apic/noapic flags don't have any effect). Either way, the install kernel starts to load and then I see
"Loading ohci1394 driver..."
"Loading sata_promise driver..." (I think that's the text)
graphics mode changes to text, screen is filled with non-ASCII characters
"Loading sata_via driver..."
Then the install stops.

jcliburn mentions that he thinks this is a known kernel issue. I read quickly through that bug report and it's unclear to me whether that is or isn't my problem. Either way, I'm quite stuck on this one since I can't even start the install process. Just in case this was a random timing issue that would resolve itself every so often, I've tried to start the install process 16 times using various apic/noapic etc options but all have failed in exactly this way.

Mobo - Soltek SL-K8TPro-939
Both VT8237R and PDC20579 raid controllers are in use in non-raid mode
CPU is Athlon 64 but I'm running in i686 mode

This setup has run fc3 without troubles for 1+ year now so I don't think it's my hardware. I've never patched a kernel before but even that won't help me here unless I want to roll my own install DVD (yeah, right!).

[astonia]

Mobo - Soltek SL-K8TPro-939
Both VT8237R and PDC20579 raid controllers are in use in non-raid mode
CPU is Athlon 64 but I'm running in i686 mode
.

My motherboard is sl-k8tpro-939 too, and I tried installing from dvd too. So exactly the same!
On the same computer, FC4 is good, FC5 is better, but FC6 sucks!

[Guy Jr]

mcwebbin,

Try using "nodmraid" to make sure FC6 does not pick up on your RAID controller. Also try using "askmethod" so when it loses the DVD drive, you can tell it to download from a nearby ftp or http mirror (make sure you have the address handy before you start). I have an HP a1640n (Intel Board) with the BIOS set for ACHI for the SATA controller. Only problem is that my DVD is a Parallel ATA (PATA) that is not yet found its way into the libata that the achi controller driver uses. The a1640n has the E6300 Core 2 Duo chip, that has the "Execute Disable Bit" feature. so I use the PAE kernel. The PAE kernel also recognizes >4GB RAM (so it recognizes the 4GB that in have installed.
Since I lose my DVD every time I get to where I load the achi driver, I had to use a http mirror to get FC6 installed on my machine.

[mcwebbin]

Good try from Guy Jr but my results were exactly the same - weird characters to the screen and the install process wedged saying "Loading sata_via driver..."

Shucks, maybe it's time to back up to fc5 but I really don't want to do that since every machine in my house is now fc6 except the one I'm fighting with. No response from the bug on bugzilla either but I expect the folks at Red Hat are really busy.

[Waggoneer]

I wonder if anyone could try installing fc6 from the re-spins that have all the updates, and some bug fixes.
http://fedoraunity.org/re-spins

[mcwebbin]

No joy. I downloaded FC7test1 and burned the first CD. I got exactly the same results with it. :-(