2 Information regarding the Enhanced IDE drive in Linux 2.6
4 ==============================================================================
7 The hdparm utility can be used to control various IDE features on a
8 running system. It is packaged separately. Please Look for it on popular
13 *** IMPORTANT NOTICES: BUGGY IDE CHIPSETS CAN CORRUPT DATA!!
15 *** PCI versions of the CMD640 and RZ1000 interfaces are now detected
16 *** automatically at startup when PCI BIOS support is configured.
18 *** Linux disables the "prefetch" ("readahead") mode of the RZ1000
19 *** to prevent data corruption possible due to hardware design flaws.
21 *** For the CMD640, linux disables "IRQ unmasking" (hdparm -u1) on any
22 *** drive for which the "prefetch" mode of the CMD640 is turned on.
23 *** If "prefetch" is disabled (hdparm -p8), then "IRQ unmasking" can be
26 *** For the CMD640, linux disables "32bit I/O" (hdparm -c1) on any drive
27 *** for which the "prefetch" mode of the CMD640 is turned off.
28 *** If "prefetch" is enabled (hdparm -p9), then "32bit I/O" can be
31 *** The CMD640 is also used on some Vesa Local Bus (VLB) cards, and is *NOT*
32 *** automatically detected by Linux. For safe, reliable operation with such
33 *** interfaces, one *MUST* use the "cmd640.probe_vlb" kernel option.
35 *** Use of the "serialize" option is no longer necessary.
37 ================================================================================
40 - 40-conductor IDE cables are capable of transferring data in DMA modes up to
43 - If possible devices should be attached to separate channels if they are
44 available. Typically the disk on the first and CD-ROM on the second.
46 - If you mix devices on the same cable, please consider using similar devices
47 in respect of the data transfer mode they support.
49 - Even better try to stick to the same vendor and device type on the same
52 ================================================================================
54 This is the multiple IDE interface driver, as evolved from hd.c.
56 It supports up to 9 IDE interfaces per default, on one or more IRQs (usually
57 14 & 15). There can be up to two drives per interface, as per the ATA-6 spec.
59 Primary: ide0, port 0x1f0; major=3; hda is minor=0; hdb is minor=64
60 Secondary: ide1, port 0x170; major=22; hdc is minor=0; hdd is minor=64
61 Tertiary: ide2, port 0x1e8; major=33; hde is minor=0; hdf is minor=64
62 Quaternary: ide3, port 0x168; major=34; hdg is minor=0; hdh is minor=64
63 fifth.. ide4, usually PCI, probed
64 sixth.. ide5, usually PCI, probed
66 To access devices on interfaces > ide0, device entries please make sure that
67 device files for them are present in /dev. If not, please create such
68 entries, by using /dev/MAKEDEV.
70 This driver automatically probes for most IDE interfaces (including all PCI
71 ones), for the drives/geometries attached to those interfaces, and for the IRQ
72 lines being used by the interfaces (normally 14, 15 for ide0/ide1).
74 For special cases, interfaces may be specified using kernel "command line"
77 ide3=0x168,0x36e,10 /* ioports 0x168-0x16f,0x36e, irq 10 */
79 Normally the irq number need not be specified, as ide.c will probe for it:
81 ide3=0x168,0x36e /* ioports 0x168-0x16f,0x36e */
83 The standard port, and irq values are these:
90 Note that the first parameter reserves 8 contiguous ioports, whereas the
91 second value denotes a single ioport. If in doubt, do a 'cat /proc/ioports'.
93 In all probability the device uses these ports and IRQs if it is attached
94 to the appropriate ide channel. Pass the parameter for the correct ide
95 channel to the kernel, as explained above.
97 Any number of interfaces may share a single IRQ if necessary, at a slight
98 performance penalty, whether on separate cards or a single VLB card.
99 The IDE driver automatically detects and handles this. However, this may
100 or may not be harmful to your hardware.. two or more cards driving the same IRQ
101 can potentially burn each other's bus driver, though in practice this
102 seldom occurs. Be careful, and if in doubt, don't do it!
104 Drives are normally found by auto-probing and/or examining the CMOS/BIOS data.
105 For really weird situations, the apparent (fdisk) geometry can also be specified
106 on the kernel "command line" using LILO. The format of such lines is:
108 hdx=cyls,heads,sects,wpcom,irq
111 where hdx can be any of hda through hdh, Three values are required
112 (cyls,heads,sects). For example:
114 hdc=1050,32,64 hdd=cdrom
116 either {hda,hdb} or {hdc,hdd}. The results of successful auto-probing may
117 override the physical geometry/irq specified, though the "original" geometry
118 may be retained as the "logical" geometry for partitioning purposes (fdisk).
120 If the auto-probing during boot time confuses a drive (ie. the drive works
121 with hd.c but not with ide.c), then an command line option may be specified
122 for each drive for which you'd like the drive to skip the hardware
123 probe/identification sequence. For example:
130 Note that when only one IDE device is attached to an interface, it should be
131 jumpered as "single" or "master", *not* "slave". Many folks have had
132 "trouble" with cdroms because of this requirement, so the driver now probes
133 for both units, though success is more likely when the drive is jumpered
136 Courtesy of Scott Snyder and others, the driver supports ATAPI cdrom drives
137 such as the NEC-260 and the new MITSUMI triple/quad speed drives.
138 Such drives will be identified at boot time, just like a hard disk.
140 If for some reason your cdrom drive is *not* found at boot time, you can force
141 the probe to look harder by supplying a kernel command line parameter
144 hdc=cdrom /* hdc = "master" on second interface */
146 hdd=cdrom /* hdd = "slave" on second interface */
148 For example, a GW2000 system might have a hard drive on the primary
149 interface (/dev/hda) and an IDE cdrom drive on the secondary interface
150 (/dev/hdc). To mount a CD in the cdrom drive, one would use something like:
152 ln -sf /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom
154 mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom -t iso9660 -o ro
156 If, after doing all of the above, mount doesn't work and you see
157 errors from the driver (with dmesg) complaining about `status=0xff',
158 this means that the hardware is not responding to the driver's attempts
159 to read it. One of the following is probably the problem:
161 - Your hardware is broken.
163 - You are using the wrong address for the device, or you have the
164 drive jumpered wrong. Review the configuration instructions above.
166 - Your IDE controller requires some nonstandard initialization sequence
167 before it will work properly. If this is the case, there will often
168 be a separate MS-DOS driver just for the controller. IDE interfaces
169 on sound cards usually fall into this category. Such configurations
170 can often be made to work by first booting MS-DOS, loading the
171 appropriate drivers, and then warm-booting linux (without powering
172 off). This can be automated using loadlin in the MS-DOS autoexec.
174 If you always get timeout errors, interrupts from the drive are probably
175 not making it to the host. Check how you have the hardware jumpered
176 and make sure it matches what the driver expects (see the configuration
177 instructions above). If you have a PCI system, also check the BIOS
178 setup; I've had one report of a system which was shipped with IRQ 15
179 disabled by the BIOS.
181 The kernel is able to execute binaries directly off of the cdrom,
182 provided it is mounted with the default block size of 1024 (as above).
184 Please pass on any feedback on any of this stuff to the maintainer,
185 whose address can be found in linux/MAINTAINERS.
187 Note that if BOTH hd.c and ide.c are configured into the kernel,
188 hd.c will normally be allowed to control the primary IDE interface.
189 This is useful for older hardware that may be incompatible with ide.c,
190 and still allows newer hardware to run on the 2nd/3rd/4th IDE ports
191 under control of ide.c. To have ide.c also "take over" the primary
192 IDE port in this situation, use the "command line" parameter: ide0=0x1f0
194 The IDE driver is modularized. The high level disk/CD-ROM/tape/floppy
195 drivers can always be compiled as loadable modules, the chipset drivers
196 can only be compiled into the kernel, and the core code (ide.c) can be
197 compiled as a loadable module provided no chipset support is needed.
199 When using ide.c as a module in combination with kmod, add:
201 alias block-major-3 ide-probe
203 to /etc/modprobe.conf.
205 When ide.c is used as a module, you can pass command line parameters to the
206 driver using the "options=" keyword to insmod, while replacing any ',' with
209 insmod ide.o options="ide0=serialize ide1=serialize ide2=0x1e8;0x3ee;11"
212 ================================================================================
214 Summary of ide driver parameters for kernel command line
215 --------------------------------------------------------
217 "hdx=" is recognized for all "x" from "a" to "h", such as "hdc".
219 "idex=" is recognized for all "x" from "0" to "3", such as "ide1".
221 "hdx=noprobe" : drive may be present, but do not probe for it
223 "hdx=none" : drive is NOT present, ignore cmos and do not probe
225 "hdx=nowerr" : ignore the WRERR_STAT bit on this drive
227 "hdx=cdrom" : drive is present, and is a cdrom drive
229 "hdx=cyl,head,sect" : disk drive is present, with specified geometry
231 "hdx=remap" : remap access of sector 0 to sector 1 (for EZDrive)
233 "hdx=remap63" : remap the drive: add 63 to all sector numbers
236 "idex=noautotune" : driver will NOT attempt to tune interface speed
238 "hdx=autotune" : driver will attempt to tune interface speed
239 to the fastest PIO mode supported,
240 if possible for this drive only.
241 Not fully supported by all chipset types,
242 and quite likely to cause trouble with
243 older/odd IDE drives.
245 "hdx=nodma" : disallow DMA
247 "hdx=scsi" : the return of the ide-scsi flag, this is useful for
248 allowing ide-floppy, ide-tape, and ide-cdrom|writers
249 to use ide-scsi emulation on a device specific option.
251 "idebus=xx" : inform IDE driver of VESA/PCI bus speed in MHz,
252 where "xx" is between 20 and 66 inclusive,
253 used when tuning chipset PIO modes.
254 For PCI bus, 25 is correct for a P75 system,
255 30 is correct for P90,P120,P180 systems,
256 and 33 is used for P100,P133,P166 systems.
257 If in doubt, use idebus=33 for PCI.
258 As for VLB, it is safest to not specify it.
259 Bigger values are safer than smaller ones.
261 "idex=base" : probe for an interface at the addr specified,
262 where "base" is usually 0x1f0 or 0x170
263 and "ctl" is assumed to be "base"+0x206
265 "idex=base,ctl" : specify both base and ctl
267 "idex=base,ctl,irq" : specify base, ctl, and irq number
269 "idex=serialize" : do not overlap operations on idex. Please note
270 that you will have to specify this option for
271 both the respective primary and secondary channel
274 "idex=four" : four drives on idex and ide(x^1) share same ports
276 "idex=reset" : reset interface after probe
278 "idex=ata66" : informs the interface that it has an 80c cable
279 for chipsets that are ATA-66 capable, but the
280 ability to bit test for detection is currently
283 "ide=reverse" : formerly called to pci sub-system, but now local.
285 The following are valid ONLY on ide0, which usually corresponds
286 to the first ATA interface found on the particular host, and the defaults for
287 the base,ctl ports must not be altered.
289 "ide=doubler" : probe/support IDE doublers on Amiga
291 There may be more options than shown -- use the source, Luke!
293 Everything else is rejected with a "BAD OPTION" message.
295 For legacy IDE VLB host drivers (ali14xx/dtc2278/ht6560b/qd65xx/umc8672)
296 you need to explicitly enable probing by using "probe" kernel parameter,
297 i.e. to enable probing for ALI M14xx chipsets (ali14xx host driver) use:
299 * "ali14xx.probe" boot option when ali14xx driver is built-in the kernel
301 * "probe" module parameter when ali14xx driver is compiled as module
302 ("modprobe ali14xx probe")
304 Also for legacy CMD640 host driver (cmd640) you need to use "probe_vlb"
305 kernel paremeter to enable probing for VLB version of the chipset (PCI ones
306 are detected automatically).
308 ================================================================================
312 IDE = Integrated Drive Electronics, meaning that each drive has a built-in
313 controller, which is why an "IDE interface card" is not a "controller card".
315 ATA = AT (the old IBM 286 computer) Attachment Interface, a draft American
316 National Standard for connecting hard drives to PCs. This is the official
319 The latest standards define some enhancements, known as the ATA-6 spec,
320 which grew out of vendor-specific "Enhanced IDE" (EIDE) implementations.
322 ATAPI = ATA Packet Interface, a new protocol for controlling the drives,
323 similar to SCSI protocols, created at the same time as the ATA2 standard.
324 ATAPI is currently used for controlling CDROM, TAPE and FLOPPY (ZIP or
325 LS120/240) devices, removable R/W cartridges, and for high capacity hard disk
331 Wed Apr 17 22:52:44 CEST 2002 edited by Marcin Dalecki, the current
334 Wed Aug 20 22:31:29 CEST 2003 updated ide boot options to current ide.c
335 comments at 2.6.0-test4 time. Maciej Soltysiak <solt@dns.toxicfilms.tv>