[Bug 502269] [NEW] Impossible to install 9.10 on PATA with HPT370/372 controller

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When motherboard of my PC (i815EP chipset) boots up, the following
information is displayed on the screen:

HighPoint Technologies, Inc. HPT370/372 BIOS Setting Utility v2.35 (c)
1999-2003. HighPoint Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.

The motherboard: Abit SA6R is equipped with additional IDE controller:
"the onboard HPT370 RAID controller chip provides two extra IDE channels
(IDE3 and IDE4) that support Ultra ATA/100 specifications". When a PATA
hard disk is connected to this controller it is impossible to install
Xubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) at this hard disk, as it is not visible at
all. During installation procedure there is an option to manually set
disks and partitions (names, sizes) where new system is to be set up.
When I take this option my hard disk connected to PATA controller is not
visible.

Yes, I set up BIOS of the motherboard correctly: there is menu
'Integrated Peripherals' with option 'ATA100RAID IDE Controller' set to
'Enabled'.

Unfortunately I'm not very good at providing detailed information on the
subject. Nevertheless I'm willing to help and spend some time for
gathering any information at need, but some support is required: where
to look, what kind of information to find.

At the same motherboard there used to be installed hard disk connected
to additional HPT370 controller and it used to work without problem on
Kubuntu 8.04. Since I upgraded to 9.04 problems started to occur. Disk
used to malfunction. Kernel started to boot and then I've got the
following message:

Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems:
     - Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
     - Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
     - Check root= (did the system wait for the right device?)
- Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)

ALERT! /dev/hd0,2 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!


With help received on Polish ubuntu forum I was able to determine that neither of above possibilities takes place. System doesn't recognize /dev/hd0,2 where my system was installed. This is exactly the same disk connected to HPT370 controller. As I couldn't determine where the problem is, I decided to reinstall the system with aid of new bootable CD, Xubuntu 9.10. Then I realized that my hard disk is not visible at all during installation procedure.

Finally I connected my PATA hard disk to 'generic' IDE controller (IDE1
of motherboard) and installed Xubuntu 9.10. Nevertheless I lost
functionallity.

Before I used to have the following configuration of IDE channels and
devices:

'generic' IDE controller:
IDE1 -> master: DVD burning device 1, slave: nothing
IDE2 -> master: DVD burning device 2, slave: nothing
HPT370 controller:
IDE3 -> master: hard disk with Kubuntu system, slave: noting
IDE4 -> master: nothing, slave: nothing

Now I was enforced to change the configuration:

'generic' IDE controller:
IDE1 -> master: hard disk with Xubuntu system, slave: nothing
IDE2 -> master: DVD burning device 1, slave: nothing
HPT370 controller:
IDE3 -> switched off in BIOS
IDE4 -> switched off in BIOS

In my opinion problem is related to kernel and/or a driver of HPT370
chipset. When I used a 'SYSTEM RESCUE CD x86, ver. 1.3.3' distro, my
hard disk connected to HPT370 was visible, I could mount it and prepare
a backup.

After installation of the Xubuntu I had the following kernel:
2.6.31-14-386. Then I updated it to the newest version: 2.6.31-16.
Nothing changed.

For current distro (Xubuntu):

# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release:      9.10

** Affects: linux (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Medium
         Status: Triaged

-- 
Impossible to install 9.10 on PATA with HPT370/372 controller
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/bugs/502269
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