Minix3 cannot find hard drive

[jns...@gmail.com]

I am trying to install Minix3 on a Dell laptop. It finds the CD to do the install and progresses to

the point where in must find the hard drive to do the partition. Then it cannot find the hard drive.

The messages are :

AT0-D2: controller not ready

AT0-D2: controller not ready

AT0-D2: reset failed, drive busy

AT0-D3: controller not ready

AT0-D3: controller not ready

AT0-D3: reset failed, drive busy

Found no drives - cant't partition.

I had FreeBSD installed on this laptop so the HD is good. Also tried another Dell laptop (different model), and get

identical error. It is likely the hardware is similar.

I tried ata_no_dma=1 and also bios_wini=yes with no success

Any advise will be welcomed

Thank you

[Antoine LECA]

On 2016-07-14 22:19Z, jns...@gmail.com wrote:
> I am trying to install Minix3 on a Dell laptop. It finds the CD to do the
> install and progresses to
> the point where in must find the hard drive to do the partition. Then it
> cannot find the hard drive.
> The messages are :
>
> AT0-D2: controller not ready

Can you explain which exact version of MINIX you are trying to install?
Also if your laptop uses AHCI (native SATA) or the older IDE/ATA mode to
access the harddisk; if the former, you should probably select the
relevant option.

> I tried ata_no_dma=1 and also bios_wini=yes with no success

Those are for antique versions of MINIX (3.1.2a basically, 2006.) Unless
you are trying to use such an old version (see above), such hints are
irrelevant to MINIX as it stands now. If you indeed want to use such
versions, and your disk uses AHCI, it will be hard since such versions
predate AHCI and are not able to deal with it.


Antoine

[jns...@gmail.com]

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 3:50:55 AM UTC-4, AntoineLeca wrote:

On 2016-07-14 22:19Z, jns...@gmail.com wrote:
> I am trying to install Minix3 on a Dell laptop. It finds the CD to do the
> install and progresses to
> the point where in must find the hard drive to do the partition. Then it
> cannot find the hard drive.
> The messages are :
>
> AT0-D2: controller not ready

Can you explain which exact version of MINIX you are trying to install?

 I am using version 3.3.0 (latest stable)

Also if your laptop uses AHCI (native SATA) or the older IDE/ATA mode to
access the harddisk; if the former, you should probably select the
relevant option.

The laptop I am using has two options in the BIOS for the drives : ATA (the factory default) and AHCI

If ATA is selected in the BIOS, then Minix cannot find the hard drive.

If AHCI is selected, Minix cannot find the CD.

For both cases I selected the appropriate option from the boot menu.

I would really like to give Minix a try on this laptop.

Thanks for the help.

[jns...@gmail.com]

Looking at the Minix source code:

It seems the failure message originates from the file autopart.c in the select_disk() function.

It further seems that the global variable drives < 1.

 

Without investigating much more, it seems the m_read() function will set the drives variable to a

value larger than 0.

My question is, does one need to partition the drive (create a partition table), before Minix will detect it ?

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

My question is, does one need to partition the drive (create a partition table), before Minix will detect it ?

I install from time to time the latest development version of MINIX in a VM on an empty (zero-filled) HDD. The disk doesn't need a partition table in order for MINIX to detect it.

I don't think autopart is at fault here, I think it's probably the disk driver. Try to read directly from it (dd if=/dev/c0dX of=test count=1, with X between 0 and 3).

If you can't find the disk like this, you'll need to trace what's going on in the disk driver. Set ahci_verbose=3 with the AHCI driver in the boot command line, compile the AT driver with VERBOSE defined and check the logs.

[Antoine LECA]

I am sorry you cannot install MINIX on your laptop.
I do not understand exactly what is happening, so I will shed some light
on how things are under the hood. i hope this will allow you to solve
the problem; at least, you will learn quite a bit on how the computer boots.

On 2016-07-15 à 21:43Z, jns...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> It is the latest stable release of Minix (3.3.0).
> It is a SATA interface to the Hard drive.

OK. Can you check whether the CD is also using SATA, or rather using
parallel interface. The former would have a normal SATA connector; while
the latter would have probably a unconventional connector with very
small pins.

> For this laptop there are two options in the BIOS: ATA or AHCI.

Yes. As I wrote, SATA drives can be driven from the chipset using two
protocols, either ATA or AHCI. Both the BIOS and MINIX are able to use
either protocols. But MINIX is somewhat limited by the fact it can only
use ONE of those protocols (more mainstream OS like FreeBSD usually are
able to use both protocols simultaneously.) This could be the
explanation for your problem, but I must add that machines which are
using both protocols at the same time are quite a bit unorthodox.
And infrequent.

> I tried both options.
> When ATA is enabled Minix will find the CD, but not the hard drive.

One point is important to understand here. The CD is accessed twice.
First it is accessed by the bootstrap mechanism, before showing the boot
menu and also when the boot loader actually loads the MINIX kernel and
its various modules.
That part uses the BIOS driver.
So it "always works." More exactly, whether it works or not is
irrelevant to decide whether MINIX has the relevant driver for your CD.

Later, while executing the initial ramdisk -- read the wiki at
wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=DevelopersGuide:FromPowerOnToLoginPrompt --
MINIX tries to locate the correct driver for the CD, in order to load
more of itself. This check incurs usually messages like
AT0-D2: controller not ready
which you are warned as "normal." If it does not success, clearly MINIX
does not have the driver (and first you should check the other option,
AHCI versus ATA.) When it is successful, it should finish load the "live
CD" version of MINIX and you are given a login opportunity and a #
prompt: this means MINIX determined the CD driver.

Even later, when you are installing using setup(8), MINIX will reuse the
same driver (as explained above) to access the hard disk. Again, if
there is a mismatch, the "not ready" messages could appear.
If this is the case, my understanding is that it would indicate your
machine has an hybrid when it comes to disk driving.


Hope it helps,

Antoine

[jns...@gmail.com]

Thank you for this information. It should be helpful.

[jns...@gmail.com]

Ok, thanks for the suggestions