Arch Linux

unull

Member

From: ::1

Registered: 2010-01-18

Posts: 18

[SOLVED] Intel DP55KG mainboard eSATA issues

Hello,

I recently bought a new Intel DP55KG mainboard to replace my broken Asus P7P55D.

I used to use an external eSATA HDD to make backups which worked flawless on my old mainboard. However, the new one got two eSATA ports provided by a Marvell 88SE6145 controller.

I need to put the controller in 'Raid' mode in the BIOS to get the HDD recognized under Windows 7 (the manual states that the eSATA ports work only in Raid-mode).

Under Linux (current Arch, kernel 2.6.35-ARCH) my HDD is not recognized by the kernel when plugged in, dmesg doesn't mention it at all, neither does gnome-disk-utility.

Does anybody had the same/similar issues? I could really need some help on this.

Last edited by unull (2010-11-10 17:33:02)

unull

Member

From: ::1

Registered: 2010-01-18

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Intel DP55KG mainboard eSATA issues

Ok, finally found a solution to this issue:

Alan Cox describes the whole issue in a commit from 2008.

Steps to get the said controller working in arch:

1) blacklist pata_marvell in /etc/rc.conf:

MODULES=(... !pata_marvell)

2) Enable marvell-mode in AHCI in /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf

options ahci marvell_enable=1

3) Adjust /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

MODULES="ahci"
...
FILES="/etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf"

4) Recreate the ramdisk (assuming you are using the default Arch kernel:

mkinitcpio -p kernel26

Reboot and it should work with AHCI out-of-the-box.

Last edited by unull (2010-11-10 17:34:55)