Kernel Panic after successful FC6 install- no SATA recognized?

[gangstarr]

Hi Guys,
Im brand new to Linux so any help would be appreciated. I installed FC6 fine onto my 60GB SATA HD. On my first boot, I received the following message

ata 1.00: tag 0 cmd 0x60 Emask 0x4 stat 0x40 err 0x0 (timeout)
ata 1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 01 Serr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen

this repeats 5 times and is followed by
Buffer I/O error device sdc (my install partition), logical block 0

This is followed by an output that I could not keep up with, and then a kernel panic. Also, when I check my GRUB options, it displays hd0 instead of sd. Any suggestions?

[jcliburn]

What is the make and model of your mainboard. A web link to the vendor site would be helpful. It usually isn't the disk that's important; it's the SATA controller.

What is your disk configuration? A single SATA drive only? No other hard drives installed in your system?

[gangstarr]

my computer is a Sony VAIO VGN-S580 notebook
I am using the Intel 915GM chipset with the Intel 82801FB/FBM controller (is this what you were asking for?)

I also use only one 60GB HD. Paritioned into a windows space, 1.5 GB swap, and rest as ext3 linux.
Thanks for the reply!

[jcliburn]

Try booting with "acpi=off". At the grub boot splash, press "a", then just type

acpi=off

and press Enter.

[gangstarr]

no luck.

I also received the following error messages
ata1: softreset failed
ata1: port failed to respond (30 seconds)
ata1: COMRESET failed (device not ready)

Thanks so much for the help so far

[jcliburn]

Another kernel boot option to try:

all-generic-ide

[gangstarr]

no luck on this either, with or without acpi services
could this be a dma error? would disabling it help?

[jcliburn]

You're not going to hurt anything by trying various kernel boot options, so go ahead and try the nodma option.

I'm a bit puzzled by the fact that the installer had no trouble detecting and using your hard drive, but now the boot OS has troubles with it and even spews some error messages about it. The kernels are the same. Can you post the contents of /etc/grub.conf?

(By the way, to answer one of your earlier questions, grub uses only hdX, not sdX, when referring to your drive(s).)

[gangstarr]

I finally got it to work! I tried a reinstall of FC6 with the acpi=off command and it worked just fine. I think my problem was in downloading the 'Fedora Extras' and installing them. One of them (not sure) probably caused a conflict. The system is up and running for the most part. I just ran up2date , that should be a good starting point. Sorry for the lag on the reply and thanks so much for your help!