From: Jonathan de Boyne Pollard on
>
>>>
>>> Well, considering that the error showed up with both an IDE and a
>>> SATA drive, it may have something to do with the motherboard's disk
>>> controller subsystem.
>>>
>> There is no disc controller on the motherboard with IDE drives.
>> That's what Integrated Drive Electronics means, after all. Turn your
>> disc unit over. See the chips and circuitry? That's where the disc
>> controller is. The motherboard contains merely a PCI-to-ATA bridge.
>>
> There is a disk controller, it just has the form of a communications
> controller, not a disk hardware controller. It still does things like
> DMA transfer and PCI interfacing.
>
If it's controlling comms, then it's clearly not a disc controller. Think!

It isn't a comms controller really, of course. It is, as stated, a
bridge between two buses, the PCI bus and the ATA bus, with a bit of
support circuitry so that it can be a programmable busmaster on the former.

>> If there's a problem with a PCI-to-ATA bridge,
>>
> Such a thing does not exist.
>
Your PC begs to differ with you, kiddo. Every time that there's an I/O
R/W transaction on your PCI bus (matching the port ranges specified in
PCI configuration space for the function, of course), your PCI-to-ATA
bridge is happily translating that into a R/W cycle on your ATA bus,
using the data and address lines, chip selects, and R/W strobe lines
that exist on the (parallel) ATA bus just as they do on many other
computer buses. And this will continue to be, however much you protest
its nonexistence on Usenet.

From: Jonathan de Boyne Pollard on
>
>>
>> There is no disc controller on the motherboard with IDE drives.
>> That's what Integrated Drive Electronics means, after all. Turn your
>> disc unit over. See the chips and circuitry? That's where the disc
>> controller is. The motherboard contains merely a PCI-to-ATA bridge.
>>
> Yes, yes, we all know that, [...]
>
Apparently not. M. Arno and M. Speed don't, it seems. It's
disappointing in the former case.

>> If there's a problem with a PCI-to-ATA bridge, it will by and large
>> affect both disc units (master and slave) on both channels (primary
>> and secondary) handled by the bridge. Device Manager, in "devices by
>> connection" view, will of course tell you which ATA devices are
>> connected to which ATA buses, and what the two devices that you saw
>> named in the error log have in common.
>>
> Okay, I just tried that. The system is organized into two "Standard
> dual channel PCI IDE controllers" (I'm using them all in IDE
> compatibility mode). Each "Standard dual" has two "ATA channels",
> which themselves each hold 2 drives, meaning 4 drives per "Dual
> channel", or 8 possible drives altogether. The hard drive that failed
> was on the first dual-channel, and the two CDROMs are in the second
> dual-channel.
>
"dual channel" is attributive, and not a full name it's own right,
note. It's a description of the type. Some PCI-to-ATA bridges (like
the one in the Intel 82371) are dual-channel; some (like the one at
device 31 function 1 in the Intel 82801) are single-channel.

> So in other words, no connection between them.
>
Then there's very probably no problem with your PCI-to-ATA bridge. Now
look at the power rails. Are the drives in question sharing the same
power rails from your PSU?

From: Rod Speed on
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote

>>>> Well, considering that the error showed up with both an IDE and a SATA drive, it may have something to do with the
>>>> motherboard's disk controller subsystem.

>>> There is no disc controller on the motherboard with IDE drives.

>> Yes there is.

>>> That's what Integrated Drive Electronics means, after all.

>>> Turn your disc unit over. See the chips and circuitry? That's where the disc controller is. The motherboard contains
>>> merely a PCI-to-ATA bridge.

>> There is still a controller on the motherboard as well as that. You can see that in the device manager.

> What one can see in Device Manager is always inferior to what one can
> see with one's own two eyes physically on the disc unit itself, kiddo.

You're so stupid that you cant even manage to work out that the controller
that does the DMA and RAID on the motherboard is clearly a controller, fuckwit.

>>> If there's a problem with a PCI-to-ATA bridge, it will by and large affect both disc units (master and slave) on
>>> both channels (primary and secondary) handled by the bridge.

>> There is no master and slave with SATA.

>>> Device Manager, in "devices by connection" view, will of course tell you which ATA devices are connected to which
>>> ATA buses,

>> There is no ATA bus with SATA.

> A serial bus is still a bus, kiddo,

Taint a bus when its just got one device on each end of the cable, fuckwit.

There is no bus with RS232, fuckwit child.

> and a serial ATA bus is still an ATA bus.

Wrong, as always.


From: Rod Speed on
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote:
>>> There is no disc controller on the motherboard with IDE drives.
>>> That's what Integrated Drive Electronics means, after all. Turn
>>> your disc unit over. See the chips and circuitry? That's where
>>> the disc controller is. The motherboard contains merely a
>>> PCI-to-ATA bridge.
>> Yes, yes, we all know that, [...]
>>
> Apparently not. M. Arno and M. Speed don't, it seems. It's
> disappointing in the former case.
>
>>> If there's a problem with a PCI-to-ATA bridge, it will by and large
>>> affect both disc units (master and slave) on both channels (primary
>>> and secondary) handled by the bridge. Device Manager, in "devices
>>> by connection" view, will of course tell you which ATA devices are
>>> connected to which ATA buses, and what the two devices that you saw
>>> named in the error log have in common.
>>>
>> Okay, I just tried that. The system is organized into two "Standard
>> dual channel PCI IDE controllers" (I'm using them all in IDE
>> compatibility mode). Each "Standard dual" has two "ATA channels",
>> which themselves each hold 2 drives, meaning 4 drives per "Dual
>> channel", or 8 possible drives altogether. The hard drive that failed
>> was on the first dual-channel, and the two CDROMs are in the second
>> dual-channel.

> "dual channel" is attributive, and not a full name it's own right, note.

Meaningless waffle.

> It's a description of the type. Some PCI-to-ATA bridges (like
> the one in the Intel 82371) are dual-channel; some (like the one at device 31 function 1 in the Intel 82801) are
> single-channel.

More irrelevant waffle. Pity they are clearly controllers and called that too.

>> So in other words, no connection between them.

> Then there's very probably no problem with your PCI-to-ATA bridge. Now look at the power rails. Are the drives in
> question sharing the
> same power rails from your PSU?

Corse they are.


From: Arno on
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> Well, considering that the error showed up with both an IDE and a
>>>> SATA drive, it may have something to do with the motherboard's disk
>>>> controller subsystem.
>>>>
>>> There is no disc controller on the motherboard with IDE drives.
>>> That's what Integrated Drive Electronics means, after all. Turn your
>>> disc unit over. See the chips and circuitry? That's where the disc
>>> controller is. The motherboard contains merely a PCI-to-ATA bridge.
>>>
>> There is a disk controller, it just has the form of a communications
>> controller, not a disk hardware controller. It still does things like
>> DMA transfer and PCI interfacing.
>>
> If it's controlling comms, then it's clearly not a disc controller. Think!

> It isn't a comms controller really, of course. It is, as stated, a
> bridge between two buses, the PCI bus and the ATA bus, with a bit of
> support circuitry so that it can be a programmable busmaster on the former.

>>> If there's a problem with a PCI-to-ATA bridge,
>>>
>> Such a thing does not exist.
>>
> Your PC begs to differ with you, kiddo. Every time that there's an I/O
> R/W transaction on your PCI bus (matching the port ranges specified in
> PCI configuration space for the function, of course), your PCI-to-ATA
> bridge is happily translating that into a R/W cycle on your ATA bus,
> using the data and address lines, chip selects, and R/W strobe lines
> that exist on the (parallel) ATA bus just as they do on many other
> computer buses. And this will continue to be, however much you protest
> its nonexistence on Usenet.

Condensation will get you nowhere. Also check my sig if you think
I am a kid.

Arno

--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno(a)wagner.name
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans