Linux Cross Reference
Linux/Documentation/ide.txt

   ide.txt -- Information regarding the Enhanced IDE drive in Linux 2.2/2.3/2.4
   ===============================================================================
   
      +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
      |  The hdparm utility for controlling various IDE features is     |
      |  packaged separately.  Look for it on popular linux FTP sites.  |
      +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
   
   See description later on below for handling BIG IDE drives with >1024 cyls.
  
  Major features of the 2.1/2.2 IDE driver ("NEW!" marks changes since 2.0.xx):
  
  NEW!    - support for IDE ATAPI *floppy* drives
          - support for IDE ATAPI *tape* drives, courtesy of Gadi Oxman
                  (re-run MAKEDEV.ide to create the tape device entries in /dev/)
          - support for up to *four* IDE interfaces on one or more IRQs
          - support for any mix of up to *eight* IDE drives
          - support for reading IDE ATAPI cdrom drives (NEC,MITSUMI,VERTOS,SONY)
          - support for audio functions
          - auto-detection of interfaces, drives, IRQs, and disk geometries
                  - "single" drives should be jumpered as "master", not "slave"
                    (both are now probed for)
          - support for BIOSs which report "more than 16 heads" on disk drives
          - uses LBA (slightly faster) on disk drives which support it
          - support for lots of fancy (E)IDE drive functions with hdparm utility
          - optional (compile time) support for 32-bit VLB data transfers
          - support for IDE multiple (block) mode (same as hd.c)
          - support for interrupt unmasking during I/O (better than hd.c)
          - improved handshaking and error detection/recovery
          - can co-exist with hd.c controlling the first interface
          - run-time selectable 32bit interface support (using hdparm-2.3)
          - support for reliable operation of buggy RZ1000 interfaces
                  - PCI support is automatic when rz1000 support is configured
          - support for reliable operation of buggy CMD-640 interfaces
                  - PCI support is automatic when cmd640 support is configured
                  - for VLB, use kernel command line option:   ide0=cmd640_vlb
                  - this support also enables the secondary i/f when needed
                  - interface PIO timing & prefetch parameter support
          - experimental support for UMC 8672 interfaces
          - support for secondary interface on the FGI/Holtek HT-6560B VLB i/f
                  - use kernel command line option:   ide0=ht6560b
          - experimental support for various IDE chipsets
                  - use appropriate kernel command line option from list below
          - support for drives with a stuck WRERR_STAT bit
          - support for removable devices, including door lock/unlock
          - transparent support for DiskManager 6.0x and "Dynamic Disk Overlay"
          - works with Linux fdisk, LILO, loadlin, bootln, etc..
          - mostly transparent support for EZ-Drive disk translation software
                  - to use LILO with EZ, install LILO on the linux partition
                    rather than on the master boot record, and then mark the
                    linux partition as "bootable" or "active" using fdisk.
                    (courtesy of Juha Laiho <jlaiho@ichaos.nullnet.fi>).
          - auto-detect of disk translations by examining partition table
          - ide-cd.c now compiles separate from ide.c
          - ide-cd.c now supports door locking and auto-loading.
                  - Also preliminary support for multisession
                    and direct reads of audio data.
          - experimental support for Promise DC4030VL caching interface card
                  - email thanks/problems to: peterd@pnd-pc.demon.co.uk
          - the hdparm-3.1 package can be used to set PIO modes for some chipsets.
  NEW!    - support for setting PIO modes with the OPTi 82C621, courtesy of Jaromir Koutek.
  NEW!    - support for loadable modules
  NEW!    - optional SCSI host adapter emulation for ATAPI devices
  NEW!    - generic PCI Bus-Master DMA support
  NEW!            - works with most Pentium PCI systems, chipsets, add-on cards
  NEW!            - works with regular DMA as well as Ultra DMA
  NEW!            - automatically probes for all PCI IDE interfaces
  NEW!    - generic support for using BIOS-configured Ultra-DMA (UDMA) transfers
  
  
  ***  IMPORTANT NOTICES:  BUGGY IDE CHIPSETS CAN CORRUPT DATA!!
  ***  =================
  ***  PCI versions of the CMD640 and RZ1000 interfaces are now detected
  ***  automatically at startup when PCI BIOS support is configured.
  ***
  ***  Linux disables the "prefetch" ("readahead") mode of the RZ1000
  ***  to prevent data corruption possible due to hardware design flaws.
  ***
  ***  For the CMD640, linux disables "IRQ unmasking" (hdparm -u1) on any
  ***  drive for which the "prefetch" mode of the CMD640 is turned on.
  ***  If "prefetch" is disabled (hdparm -p8), then "IRQ unmasking" can be
  ***  used again.
  ***
  ***  For the CMD640, linux disables "32bit I/O" (hdparm -c1) on any drive
  ***  for which the "prefetch" mode of the CMD640 is turned off.
  ***  If "prefetch" is enabled (hdparm -p9), then "32bit I/O" can be
  ***  used again.
  ***
  ***  The CMD640 is also used on some Vesa Local Bus (VLB) cards, and is *NOT*
  ***  automatically detected by Linux.  For safe, reliable operation with such
  ***  interfaces, one *MUST* use the "ide0=cmd640_vlb" kernel option.
  ***
  ***  Use of the "serialize" option is no longer necessary.
  
  This is the multiple IDE interface driver, as evolved from hd.c.
  It supports up to six IDE interfaces, on one or more IRQs (usually 14 & 15).
  There can be up to two drives per interface, as per the ATA-2 spec.
  
  Primary:    ide0, port 0x1f0; major=3;  hda is minor=0; hdb is minor=64
 Secondary:  ide1, port 0x170; major=22; hdc is minor=0; hdd is minor=64
 Tertiary:   ide2, port 0x1e8; major=33; hde is minor=0; hdf is minor=64
 Quaternary: ide3, port 0x168; major=34; hdg is minor=0; hdh is minor=64
 fifth..     ide4, usually PCI, probed
 sixth..     ide5, usually PCI, probed
 
 To access devices on interfaces > ide0, device entries must first be
 created in /dev for them.  To create such entries, simply run the included
 shell script:   /usr/src/linux/scripts/MAKEDEV.ide
 
 Apparently many older releases of Slackware had incorrect entries
 in /dev for hdc* and hdd* -- this can also be corrected by running MAKEDEV.ide
 
 ide.c automatically probes for most IDE interfaces (including all PCI ones),
 for the drives/geometries attached to those interfaces, and for the
 IRQ numbers being used by the interfaces (normally 14, 15 for ide0/ide1).
 
 For special cases, interfaces may be specified using kernel "command line"
 options.  For example,
 
         ide3=0x168,0x36e,10     /* ioports 0x168-0x16f,0x36e, irq 10 */
 
 Normally the irq number need not be specified, as ide.c will probe for it:
 
         ide3=0x168,0x36e        /* ioports 0x168-0x16f,0x36e */
 
 The standard port, and irq values are these:
 
         ide0=0x1f0,0x3f6,14
         ide1=0x170,0x376,15
         ide2=0x1e8,0x3ee,11
         ide3=0x168,0x36e,10
 
 Note that the first parameter reserves 8 contiguous ioports, whereas the
 second value denotes a single ioport. If in doubt, do a 'cat /proc/ioports'.
 
 In all probability the device uses these ports and IRQs if it is attached
 to the appropriate ide channel.  Pass the parameter for the correct ide
 channel to the kernel, as explained above.
 
 Any number of interfaces may share a single IRQ if necessary, at a slight
 performance penalty, whether on separate cards or a single VLB card.
 The IDE driver automatically detects and handles this.  However, this may
 or may not be harmful to your hardware.. two or more cards driving the same IRQ
 can potentially burn each other's bus driver, though in practice this
 seldom occurs.  Be careful, and if in doubt, don't do it!
 
 Drives are normally found by auto-probing and/or examining the CMOS/BIOS data.
 For really weird situations, the apparent (fdisk) geometry can also be specified
 on the kernel "command line" using LILO.  The format of such lines is:
 
         hdx=cyls,heads,sects,wpcom,irq
 or      hdx=cdrom
 
 where hdx can be any of hda through hdh, Three values are required
 (cyls,heads,sects).  For example:
 
         hdc=1050,32,64  hdd=cdrom
 
 either {hda,hdb} or {hdc,hdd}.  The results of successful auto-probing may
 override the physical geometry/irq specified, though the "original" geometry
 may be retained as the "logical" geometry for partitioning purposes (fdisk).
 
 If the auto-probing during boot time confuses a drive (ie. the drive works
 with hd.c but not with ide.c), then an command line option may be specified
 for each drive for which you'd like the drive to skip the hardware
 probe/identification sequence.  For example:
 
         hdb=noprobe
 or
         hdc=768,16,32
         hdc=noprobe
 
 Note that when only one IDE device is attached to an interface,
 it should be jumpered as "single" or "master", *not* "slave".
 Many folks have had "trouble" with cdroms because of this requirement,
 so ide.c now probes for both units, though success is more likely
 when the drive is jumpered correctly.
 
 Courtesy of Scott Snyder and others, the driver supports ATAPI cdrom drives
 such as the NEC-260 and the new MITSUMI triple/quad speed drives.
 Such drives will be identified at boot time, just like a hard disk.
 
 If for some reason your cdrom drive is *not* found at boot time, you can force
 the probe to look harder by supplying a kernel command line parameter
 via LILO, such as:
 
         hdc=cdrom       /* hdc = "master" on second interface */
 or
         hdd=cdrom       /* hdd = "slave" on second interface */
 
 For example, a GW2000 system might have a hard drive on the primary
 interface (/dev/hda) and an IDE cdrom drive on the secondary interface
 (/dev/hdc).  To mount a CD in the cdrom drive, one would use something like:
 
         ln -sf /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom
         mkdir /cd
         mount /dev/cdrom /cd -t iso9660 -o ro
 
 If, after doing all of the above, mount doesn't work and you see
 errors from the driver (with dmesg) complaining about `status=0xff',
 this means that the hardware is not responding to the driver's attempts
 to read it.  One of the following is probably the problem:
 
   - Your hardware is broken.
 
   - You are using the wrong address for the device, or you have the
     drive jumpered wrong.  Review the configuration instructions above.
 
   - Your IDE controller requires some nonstandard initialization sequence
     before it will work properly.  If this is the case, there will often
     be a separate MS-DOS driver just for the controller.  IDE interfaces
     on sound cards usually fall into this category.  Such configurations
     can often be made to work by first booting MS-DOS, loading the
     appropriate drivers, and then warm-booting linux (without powering
     off).  This can be automated using loadlin in the MS-DOS autoexec.
 
 If you always get timeout errors, interrupts from the drive are probably
 not making it to the host.  Check how you have the hardware jumpered
 and make sure it matches what the driver expects (see the configuration
 instructions above).  If you have a PCI system, also check the BIOS
 setup; I've had one report of a system which was shipped with IRQ 15
 disabled by the BIOS.
 
 The kernel is able to execute binaries directly off of the cdrom,
 provided it is mounted with the default block size of 1024 (as above).
 
 Please pass on any feedback on any of this stuff to the maintainer,
 whose address can be found in linux/MAINTAINERS.
 
 Note that if BOTH hd.c and ide.c are configured into the kernel,
 hd.c will normally be allowed to control the primary IDE interface.
 This is useful for older hardware that may be incompatible with ide.c,
 and still allows newer hardware to run on the 2nd/3rd/4th IDE ports
 under control of ide.c.   To have ide.c also "take over" the primary
 IDE port in this situation, use the "command line" parameter:  ide0=0x1f0
 
 The IDE driver is partly modularized.  The high level disk/cdrom/tape/floppy
 drivers can always be compiled as loadable modules, the chipset drivers
 can only be compiled into the kernel, and the core code (ide.c) can be
 compiled as a loadable module provided no chipset support and no special
 partition table translations are needed.
 
 When using ide.c/ide-tape.c as modules in combination with kerneld, add:
 
         alias block-major-3 ide-probe
         alias char-major-37 ide-tape
 
 respectively to /etc/modules.conf.
 
 When ide.c is used as a module, you can pass command line parameters to the
 driver using the "options=" keyword to insmod, while replacing any ',' with
 ';'.  For example:
 
         insmod ide.o options="ide0=serialize ide2=0x1e8;0x3ee;11"
 
 
 ================================================================================
 
 Summary of ide driver parameters for kernel "command line":
 ----------------------------------------------------------
  "hdx="  is recognized for all "x" from "a" to "h", such as "hdc".
  "idex=" is recognized for all "x" from "0" to "3", such as "ide1".
 
  "hdx=noprobe"          : drive may be present, but do not probe for it
  "hdx=none"             : drive is NOT present, ignore cmos and do not probe
  "hdx=nowerr"           : ignore the WRERR_STAT bit on this drive
  "hdx=cdrom"            : drive is present, and is a cdrom drive
  "hdx=cyl,head,sect"    : disk drive is present, with specified geometry
  "hdx=autotune"         : driver will attempt to tune interface speed
                                 to the fastest PIO mode supported,
                                 if possible for this drive only.
                                 Not fully supported by all chipset types,
                                 and quite likely to cause trouble with
                                 older/odd IDE drives.
  "hdx=slow"             : insert a huge pause after each access to the data
                                 port. Should be used only as a last resort.
  "hdx=swapdata"         : when the drive is a disk, byte swap all data
 
  "hdxlun=xx"            : set the drive last logical unit
 
  "idebus=xx"            : inform IDE driver of VESA/PCI bus speed in MHz,
                                 where "xx" is between 20 and 66 inclusive,
                                 used when tuning chipset PIO modes.
                                 For PCI bus, 25 is correct for a P75 system,
                                 30 is correct for P90,P120,P180 systems,
                                 and 33 is used for P100,P133,P166 systems.
                                 If in doubt, use idebus=33 for PCI.
                                 As for VLB, it is safest to not specify it.
                                 Bigger values are safer than smaller ones.
 
  "idex=noprobe"         : do not attempt to access/use this interface
  "idex=base"            : probe for an interface at the addr specified,
                                 where "base" is usually 0x1f0 or 0x170
                                 and "ctl" is assumed to be "base"+0x206
  "idex=base,ctl"        : specify both base and ctl
  "idex=base,ctl,irq"    : specify base, ctl, and irq number
  "idex=autotune"        : driver will attempt to tune interface speed
                                 to the fastest PIO mode supported,
                                 for all drives on this interface.
                                 Not fully supported by all chipset types,
                                 and quite likely to cause trouble with
                                 older/odd IDE drives.
  "idex=noautotune"      : driver will NOT attempt to tune interface speed
                                 This is the default for most chipsets,
                                 except the cmd640.
  "idex=serialize"       : do not overlap operations on idex and ide(x^1)
  "idex=reset"           : reset interface after probe
  "idex=dma"             : automatically configure/use DMA if possible.
 
  The following are valid ONLY on ide0,
  and the defaults for the base,ctl ports must not be altered.
 
  "ide0=dtc2278"         : probe/support DTC2278 interface
  "ide0=ht6560b"         : probe/support HT6560B interface
  "ide0=cmd640_vlb"      : *REQUIRED* for VLB cards with the CMD640 chip
                           (not for PCI -- automatically detected)
  "ide0=qd6580"          : probe/support qd6580 interface
  "ide0=ali14xx"         : probe/support ali14xx chipsets (ALI M1439/M1445)
  "ide0=umc8672"         : probe/support umc8672 chipsets
 
 There may be more options than shown -- use the source, Luke!
 
 Everything else is rejected with a "BAD OPTION" message.
 
 ================================================================================
 
 Some Terminology
 ----------------
 IDE = Integrated Drive Electronics, meaning that each drive has a built-in
 controller, which is why an "IDE interface card" is not a "controller card".
 
 IDE drives are designed to attach almost directly to the ISA bus of an AT-style
 computer.  The typical IDE interface card merely provides I/O port address
 decoding and tri-state buffers, although several newer localbus cards go much
 beyond the basics.  When purchasing a localbus IDE interface, avoid cards with
 an onboard BIOS and those which require special drivers.  Instead, look for a
 card which uses hardware switches/jumpers to select the interface timing speed,
 to allow much faster data transfers than the original 8MHz ISA bus allows.
 
 ATA = AT (the old IBM 286 computer) Attachment Interface, a draft American
 National Standard for connecting hard drives to PCs.  This is the official
 name for "IDE".
 
 The latest standards define some enhancements, known as the ATA-2 spec,
 which grew out of vendor-specific "Enhanced IDE" (EIDE) implementations.
 
 ATAPI = ATA Packet Interface, a new protocol for controlling the drives,
 similar to SCSI protocols, created at the same time as the ATA2 standard.
 ATAPI is currently used for controlling CDROM and TAPE devices, and will
 likely also soon be used for Floppy drives, removable R/W cartridges,
 and for high capacity hard disk drives.
 
 How To Use *Big* ATA/IDE drives with Linux
 ------------------------------------------
 The ATA Interface spec for IDE disk drives allows a total of 28 bits
 (8 bits for sector, 16 bits for cylinder, and 4 bits for head) for addressing
 individual disk sectors of 512 bytes each (in "Linear Block Address" (LBA)
 mode, there is still only a total of 28 bits available in the hardware).
 This "limits" the capacity of an IDE drive to no more than 128GB (Giga-bytes).
 All current day IDE drives are somewhat smaller than this upper limit, and
 within a few years, ATAPI disk drives will raise the limit considerably.
 
 All IDE disk drives "suffer" from a "16-heads" limitation:  the hardware has
 only a four bit field for head selection, restricting the number of "physical"
 heads to 16 or less.  Since the BIOS usually has a 63 sectors/track limit,
 this means that all IDE drivers larger than 504MB (528Meg) must use a "physical"
 geometry with more than 1024 cylinders.
 
    (1024cyls * 16heads * 63sects * 512bytes/sector) / (1024 * 1024) == 504MB
 
 (Some BIOSs (and controllers with onboard BIOS) pretend to allow "32" or "64"
  heads per drive (discussed below), but can only do so by playing games with
  the real (hidden) geometry, which is always limited to 16 or fewer heads).
 
 This presents two problems to most systems:
 
         1. The INT13 interface to the BIOS only allows 10-bits for cylinder
         addresses, giving a limit of 1024cyls for programs which use it.
 
         2. The physical geometry fields of the disk partition table only
         allow 10-bits for cylinder addresses, giving a similar limit of 1024
         cyls for operating systems that do not use the "sector count" fields
         instead of the physical Cyl/Head/Sect (CHS) geometry fields.
 
 Neither of these limitations affects Linux itself, as it (1) does not use the
 BIOS for disk access, and it (2) is clever enough to use the "sector count"
 fields of the partition table instead of the physical CHS geometry fields.
 
         a) Most folks use LILO to load linux.  LILO uses the INT13 interface
         to the BIOS to load the kernel at boot time.  Therefore, LILO can only
         load linux if the files it needs (usually just the kernel images) are
         located below the magic 1024 cylinder "boundary" (more on this later).
 
         b) Many folks also like to have bootable DOS partitions on their
         drive(s).  DOS also uses the INT13 interface to the BIOS, not only
         for booting, but also for operation after booting.  Therefore, DOS
         can normally only access partitions which are contained entirely below
         the magic 1024 cylinder "boundary".
 
 There are at least seven commonly used schemes for kludging DOS to work
 around this "limitation".  In the long term, the problem is being solved
 by introduction of an alternative BIOS interface that does not have the
 same limitations as the INT13 interface.  New versions of DOS are expected
 to detect and use this interface in systems whose BIOS provides it.
 
 But in the present day, alternative solutions are necessary.
 
 The most popular solution in newer systems is to have the BIOS shift bits
 between the cylinder and head number fields.  This is activated by entering
 a translated logical geometry into the BIOS/CMOS setup for the drive.
 Thus, if the drive has a geometry of 2100/16/63 (CHS), then the BIOS could
 present a "logical" geometry of 525/64/63 by "shifting" two bits from the
 cylinder number into the head number field for purposes of the partition table,
 CMOS setup, and INT13 interfaces.  Linux kernels 1.1.39 and higher detect and
 "handle" this translation automatically, making this a rather painless solution
 for the 1024 cyls problem.  If for some reason Linux gets confused (unlikely),
 then use the kernel command line parameters to pass the *logical* geometry,
 as in:  hda=525,64,63
 
 If the BIOS does not support this form of drive translation, then several
 options remain, listed below in order of popularity:
 
         - use a partition below the 1024 cyl boundary to hold the linux
         boot files (kernel images and /boot directory), and place the rest
         of linux anywhere else on the drive.  These files can reside in a DOS
         partition, or in a tailor-made linux boot partition.
         - use DiskManager software from OnTrack, supplied free with
         many new hard drive purchases.
         - use EZ-Drive software (similar to DiskManager).  Note though,
         that LILO must *not* use the MBR when EZ-Drive is present.
         Instead, install LILO on the first sector of your linux partition,
         and mark it as "active" or "bootable" with fdisk.
         - boot from a floppy disk instead of the hard drive (takes 10 seconds).
 
 If you cannot use drive translation, *and* your BIOS also restricts you to
 entering no more than 1024 cylinders in the geometry field in the CMOS setup,
 then just set it to 1024.  As of v3.5 of this driver, Linux automatically
 determines the *real* number of cylinders for fdisk to use, allowing easy
 access to the full disk capacity without having to fiddle around.
 
 Regardless of what you do, all DOS partitions *must* be contained entirely
 within the first 1024 logical cylinders.  For a 1Gig WD disk drive, here's
 a good "half and half" partitioning scheme to start with:
 
         geometry = 2100/16/63
         /dev/hda1 from cyl    1 to  992         dos
         /dev/hda2 from cyl  993 to 1023         swap
         /dev/hda3 from cyl 1024 to 2100         linux
 
 To ensure that LILO can boot linux, the boot files (kernel and /boot/*)
 must reside within the first 1024 cylinders of the drive.  If your linux
 root partition is *not* completely within the first 1024 cyls (quite common),
 then you can use LILO to boot linux from files on your DOS partition
 by doing the following after installing Slackware (or whatever):
 
         0. Boot from the "boot floppy" created during the installation
         1. Mount your DOS partition as /dos (and stick it in /etc/fstab)
         2. Move /boot to /dos/boot with:  cp -a /boot /dos ; rm -r /boot
         3. Create a symlink for LILO to use with:  ln -s /dos/boot /boot
         4. Move your kernel (/vmlinuz) to /boot/vmlinuz:  mv /vmlinuz /boot
         5. Edit /etc/lilo.conf to change /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz
         6. Re-run LILO with:  lilo
 
         A danger with this approach is that whenever an MS-DOS "defragmentation"
         program is run (like Norton "speeddisk"), it may move the Linux boot
         files around, confusing LILO and making the (Linux) system unbootable.
         Be sure to keep a kernel "boot floppy" at hand for such circumstances.
         A possible workaround is to mark the Linux files as S+H+R (System,
         Hidden, Readonly), to prevent most defragmentation programs from
         moving the files around.
 
 If you "don't do DOS", then partition as you please, but remember to create
 a small partition to hold the /boot directory (and vmlinuz) as described above
 such that they stay within the first 1024 cylinders.
 
 Note that when creating partitions that span beyond cylinder 1024,
 Linux fdisk will complain about "Partition X has different physical/logical
 endings" and emit messages such as "This is larger than 1024, and may cause
 problems with some software".   Ignore this for linux partitions.  The "some
 software" refers to DOS, the BIOS, and LILO, as described previously.
 
 Western Digital ships a "DiskManager 6.03" diskette with all of their big
 hard drives.  Use BIOS translation instead of this if possible, as it is a
 more generally compatible method of achieving the same results (DOS access
 to the entire disk).  However, if you must use DiskManager, it now works
 with Linux 1.3.x in most cases.  Let me know if you still have trouble.
 
 My recommendations to anyone who asks about NEW systems are:
 
         - buy a motherboard that uses the Intel Triton chipset -- very common.
         - use IDE for the first two drives, placing them on separate interfaces.
                 - very fast 7200rpm drives are now available
                 (though many problems have been reported with Seagate ones).
         - place the IDE cdrom drive as slave on either interface.
         - if additional disks are to be connected, consider your needs:
                 - fileserver?  Buy a SC200 SCSI adaptor for the next few drives.
                 - personal system?  Use IDE for the next two drives.
                 - still not enough?  Keep adding SC200 SCSI cards as needed.
 
 Most manufacturers make both IDE and SCSI versions of each of their drives.
 The IDE ones are usually as fast and cheaper, due to lower command overhead
 and the higher data transfer speed of UDMA2.  But fast/ultrawide/superlative
 SCSI is still king of the heap, especially for servers, if you've got the bucks.
 
 mlord@pobox.com
 --
 For current maintainers of this stuff, see the linux/MAINTAINERS file.