Hangs up with SATA disk (recent bios).

[Romain Chambre]

Hello,

Summary :
When installing grub on the MBR of my large SATA disk, it hangs up at 
boot. I get the two following messages:
Grub 1.5
Loading Grub, please wait...

Keyboard still answers so it does not seem to crash, it just hangs up. 
Below are all the information I can give you concerning my setup and the 
error.


I am using grub 0.93.20030118. It was compiled with gcc 3.3.2 (pattched 
with some fixes)
and using binutils 2.14.90.0.7.

I am running a P4G8X Deluxe motherboard with 1006 bios version (latest) 
and one of the HDD is on a SiliconImage SATARaid 3112 controller using 
bios version 4.12.24 (latest).  The two other HDD are on a ADAPTEC ULTRA 
160 scsi card with the latest firmware version.

Here are my 3 hdd:

hd0 on SATA SiI controller :

Model=Maxtor 6Y160M0, FwRev=YAR51BW0, SerialNo=Y41YFMME
Config={ Fixed }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=7936kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=268435455
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2
AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: (null):

Partition table:
  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hde1   *           1       14590   117194143+  83  Linux
/dev/hde2           14591       19929    42885517+   7  HPFS/NTFS


hd1 and hd2 are on the SCSI controller:
hd1 is a SEAGATE hdd, other one is a Quantum ATLAS 10KII. I have never 
had any problem with grub installed on the MBR of those disks, they work 
quite perfectly so I guess I don't need to flood you with all the 
technical details of those two disks.
Here are the partition tables anyway:

hd1:
Disk /dev/sda: 36.7 GB, 36721571840 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4464 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        4463    35849016    7  HPFS/NTFS

hd2:

Disk /dev/sdb: 36.7 GB, 36703934464 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4462 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2              14          75      498015   82  Linux swap
/dev/sdb3              76        4462    35238577+  83  Linux


I installed grub with the following command:
setup(hd0) (mbr of the SATA disk)
root(hd2,0)

my grub.conf is quite traditional (I did not add any specific option and 
made sure all the paths were correctly specified).

Here are the tests I made:

test1 :both scsi hdd plugged in and no SATA hdd. Grub installed on the 
mbr of the first SCSI hdd. Works perfectly.
test2: SATA hdd, both SCSI hdd plugged in. Grub installed on the mbr of 
the SATA hdd. Hangs up.
test3: SATA hdd, either of SCSI hdd plugged in. Grub installed on the 
mbr of the SATA hdd. Hangs up.

Saddly, I cannot try to install grub on the MBR of any of the SCSI disk 
while having the SATA hdd plugged in because when the SATA hdd is on, it 
gets automatically the hd0 assignment.
I have not tried to put the SATA hdd alone either (I don't have any boot 
partition or OS on it, it's just a data disk) but I may do it if that 
appears to be necessary.

Finally, LILO worked perfectly when installed on the MBR of the SATA hdd 
so I suppose it is not coming from the BIOS or the SATA controller. I 
had to specify "lba32" in lilo.conf though, if that's of any importance.

Let me know if you need any other information or want me to try some 
things. That's quite an annoying bug, LILO is not bad but... that's not 
GRUB.


Best regards,

       Romain Chambre.