[bug #16721] Grub Hard Disk Error when using SATA on EPOX EP-8K9A7I M/Board

[Stuart Leigh]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=detailitem&item_id=16721>

                 Summary: Grub Hard Disk Error when using SATA on EPOX
EP-8K9A7I M/Board
                 Project: GNU GRUB
            Submitted by: sleigh
            Submitted on: Thursday 01/06/06 at 12:35
                Category: Booting
                Severity: Major
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Non-software Error
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: Stuart Leigh
        Originator Email: address@hidden
             Open/Closed: Open
                 Release: 0.95
         Reproducibility: Every Time
         Planned Release: 

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Details:

When using Grub version greater than 0.94 and with the SATA enabled on an
EPOX EP-8K9A7I Motherboard with 2 SATA disks attached, a grub hard disk error
is reported while loading stage2.

If the SATA is disabled in the BIOS then it works fine and doesn't have any
problems loading stage 2.

The limited configurability of the BIOS means that I am limited to basically
enabling and disabling of the SATA functionality.

The mainboard has a KT400A + VT8237 chipset

The chipset has Via raid capability, but this is not used so it effectively
is JBOD.

The BIOS version is Award BIOS V6.00.

Other than the 2 SATA disks there are also 2 IDE disks attached.

The full disk setup ( partition sizes, geometry etc ) is to follow.

After a bit of investigation I have managed to track down the failure point
to the asm.S and bios.c files in the stage2 directory of the grub0.95 source
code. By modifying these 2 files I have managed to create a working stage 2
file that works with both SATA and non SATA enabled scenarios.

More specifically I modified the  biosdisk_int13_extensions function ( in the
0.95 souce ) to what it was in the asm.S file from grub version 0.94
and put back the code for the get_diskinfo_int13_extensions function in the
asm.S file of the 0.95 source.

I also had to modify the calls in the bios.c file in the 0.95 source to what
they were in the 0.93 source.

I have probably broken something else by doing this, but I am not an expert
in either C programming or Assembly language, so I had to hack it in the
worst possible way.

I will attach the modified source to asm.S and bios.c later.









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