FC6 - ATA1/ATA2 SRST errors on boot

[Deron Meranda]

On 10/28/06, Mail List <lists at sapience.com> wrote:
> ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xFE00 ctl 0xFE12 bmdma 0xFEA0 irq 169
> ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xFE20 ctl 0xFE32 bmdma 0xFEA8 irq 169
> scsi0 : ata_piix
> ata1: port is slow to respond, please be patient
> ata1: port failed to respond (30 secs)
> ata1: SRST failed (status 0xFF)
> ata1: SRST failed (err_mask=0x100)
> ata1: softreset failed, retrying in 5 secs
> ata1: SRST failed (status 0xFF)
> ata1: SRST failed (err_mask=0x100)
> ata1: softreset failed, retrying in 5 secs
> ata1: SRST failed (status 0xFF)
> ata1: SRST failed (err_mask=0x100)
> ata1: reset failed, giving up

There have been many many threads about this, actually since the
most recent kernel update in FC5 (kernel-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5), but
certainly since FC6 too.  This could be an upstream kernel issue (?).

I don't think I've seen any definitive explanation or if it, or is being
working on.  But it seems that the newest kernels (specifically
the ata_piix module) are now thinking that certain ATA chipsets
(mostly from Dell, such as GX270's) also support SATA drives,
when in fact your system doesn't.  This may be in part because
there was a unification of the SATA and ATA drivers (in the
ata_piix module).

Anyway, since it thinks your system supports SATA it then attempts
to probe for all SATA drives, and since there are no drives and
in fact no SATA bus, it has to wait for the SATA bus reset
commands (SRST) to time out.

Supposedly harmless, except for the insanely long boot times.

That's my understanding of it anyway.
-- 
Deron Meranda