Re: Drives missing at boot

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On 07/06/2010 08:13 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>> OK - thanks. The patch seemed to install correctly. I then did
>>
>> make clean
>> make && make modules_install
>>
>> and then a Gentoo command:
>>
>> modules-rebuild -X rebuild
>>
>> to pick up any package modules that need to be rebuild when I use a
>> new kernel. (X drivers, vmware, etc.)
>>
>> The kernel boots fine:
>>
>> mark@c2stable ~ $ uname -a
>> Linux c2stable 2.6.34-gentoo-r1 #4 SMP PREEMPT Tue Jul 6 10:35:15 PDT
>> 2010 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU X 980 @ 3.33GHz GenuineIntel
>> GNU/Linux
>> mark@c2stable ~ $
>>
>> I don't know what I'm looking for in the dmesg files but I do see one
>> message about a SATA Link being down.
>
> Umm... the patched module isn't being loaded. ÂIf patched, it should
> be reporting whether it's hard or soft resetting and some other debug
> messages. ÂOne common mistake is not updating initrd with patched
> modules. ÂIs "modules-rebuild -X rebuild" the command for initrd
> update?
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> tejun
>
I don't use an initrd.

I don't know what happened with the patch but clearly it wasn't in
there. I wasn't confident so I used the --dry-run option. Maybe I
forgot to remove it or something. Sorry. It's in now.

OK - I don't know if this was you intention but since adding this
patch I've not had a single drive missing failure. I've cold booted
about 8 times and warm booted at least 20 times. Every one has come up
fine. I've even gone so far as to turn off the UPS and sit for 5
minutes before cold booting. Still nothing fails right now.

I've had this sort of statistical thing happen before where it hasn't
failed for days, maybe even weeks, but then it starts failing and
fails every time for awhile. Over the past few days working with you
I've never had to reboot more than twice to get you a file. Now I've
tried 30 times this morning and I've come up with nothing.

I will continue to watch the machine and send you the failing dmesg
file whenever I finally get it. For now I can only attach the passing
file showing the patch is now included.

modules-rebuild is just a little Gentoo script that rebuilds a list of
modules that I've previously set up. Each time I build a new kernel I
rebuild some modules as well as mesa:

xorg-drivers
xorg-input-evdev
xorg-input-keyboard
xorg-input-mouse
xf86-video-ati
xf86-video-fbdev
xf86-video-vmware
vmware-modules
mesa

Clearly I shouldn't need both evdev as well as keyboard/mouse but
there's been problems with hald so I've been flipping back and forth a
bit. mesa is just superstition but I _think_ it's helped a couple of
times.

Thanks!

- Mark

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