Booting from Compact Flash

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Booting from Compact Flash
started by: PeterPiper

Posted by PeterPiper on Jan. 14 2005,16:49

I'm trying to get DSL running from a 256Mb CF (IDE > CF adapter) I'm running into all sorts of dma timeout delays on boot. The CF is a SanDisk SDCFH-256 ("Ultra II") and the system is a Via EPIA 5000. No problems and no errors reported with a standard HD and it boots fine that way.

Here's what dmesg reports:

hdc: SanDisk SDCFH-256, CFA DISK drive
blk: queue c03b37b4, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hdc: attached ide-disk driver.
hdc: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hdc: 501760 sectors (257 MB) w/1KiB Cache, CHS=980/16/32, DMA
Partition check:
hdc:<4>hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdc: error waiting for DMA
hdc: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

Obviously, it eventually gets past the error but it takes over a minute to do so. Also obviously, I currently have it connected as a 2nd IDE Master but the behavior is the same if it's on /dev/hda

When I mount the CF (it is read only and is only used for loading into RAMDISK). Mounting takes over a minute before it completes and it does mount ok:

root@rush: mount /dev/hdc /tmp/cf

hdc:<4>hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdc: error waiting for DMA
hdc: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

hdc1 hdc2 hdc3 hdc4
hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdc: error waiting for DMA
hdc: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdc: error waiting for DMA
hdc: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

hdc: hdc1 hdc2 hdc3 hdc4
hdc: hdc1 hdc2 hdc3 hdc4
UMSDOS 0.86k (compatibility level 0.4, fast msdos)

It does mount:

root@rush: df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 171M 124M 38M 77% /
/dev/hdc1 245M 50M 196M 21% /tmp/cf

Any thoughts?