[linuxBIOS] IDE HDD detecting

[Edward J. Lee]

Richard Smith wrote:

> Edward J. Lee wrote:
>
>> Hi guys, I'm new on the list.
>
>
> Welcome to linuxBIOS.
>
>> I'm using my own mainboard and I'm having problems with
>> IDE HDD probing. the function ide_init() seems to return 0
>> *even* there are no HDDs attached on the system.
>>
>> Anyone know what to do?
>
>
> Well when I had issues with the native LinuxBIOS IDE code not 
> detecting the CHS properly with my CF the response I received was to 
> use the ide driver of Etherboot.  So I got Etherboot 5.1.8 and that 
> fixed my issues.
>
> I would say try etherboot and see if that works then when you know 
> your hardware is correctly configured and working you can do some 
> compare/contrast with etherboot and see whats wrong with LB IDE.
>
The important issue was that linuxBIOS 'thinks' to have detected an IDE 
device even
when I didn't attach any. (of course, the disk info gets read awfully). 
When an IDE HDD
exists, everything goes just fine for me. (ide_init() works great)
I had to fix this problem by reading in a 'magic number' from the 
partition table to check
if an HDD really exists.

Thx, anywayz

Ed.