IDE-flash device and hard disk on same controller

From: Heater, Daniel (IndSys, GEFanuc, VMIC) (Daniel.Heater@gefanuc.com)
Date: Mon Aug 19 2002 - 13:31:53 EST

The IDE driver, file ide-probe.c currently contains this test do prevent
hard drives and IDE-flash devices (ex CompactFlash) from co-existing on the
same IDE controller.

        /*
         * Prevent long system lockup probing later for non-existant
         * slave drive if the hwif is actually a flash memory card of some
variety:
         */
        if (drive_is_flashcard(drive)) {
                ide_drive_t *mate =
&HWIF(drive)->drives[1^drive->select.b.unit];
                if (!mate->ata_flash) {
                        mate->present = 0;
                        mate->noprobe = 1;
                }
        }

This test's assumption that a spinning hard drive cannot coexist on the same
controller as an IDE-flash device is incorrect. I have a working setup with
such a configuration. I don't think that the IDE subsystem should punish
everyone because _some_ hardware cannot tolerate this configuration.

One solution may be to remove this test from the IDE subsystem and force
users with buggy hardware to explicitly disable probing for a second
device. I think the parameters hdx=none or hdx=noprobe should work for
them.

Comments??

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