EPIA success and problem

[Eric W. Biederman]

Adam Sulmicki <adam at cfar.umd.edu> writes:

> > > > It now boots into GRUB in less than 2 seconds. :)
> > > > (It's too fast for IDE drive to spin up, so I have to hit reset
> > > > button after cold start.)
> > >
> > > hmm, in rombios.c, can you try increasing ATA_WAIT_COUNT by magnitude or
> > > two and see if it helps?
> >
> > You need to put in the code to spin on the busy bit.
> >
> > See the ehterboot source for an example.
> >
> > Except on out of spec hardware that always works, and making
> > certain the busy bit is cleared before using a drive
> > is required for correct operation in all cases.
> 
> I think that this code is already there.
> 
> It just that this spin has an time-out option, just so that it won't hang
> for some weird reason. ATA_WAIT_COUNT should increase this timeout.
> 
> Still thanks for pointer to etherboot. I'll check it out, it might give me
> better ideas how to do it :-)

If nothing else your timeout needs to be something like 31-32 seconds
long.  The maximum specified in the latest ATA specs is either
30 or 31 seconds, plus an additional second as a fudge factor.

Also in there is code that correctly handles > 120GB drives.

Eric