# 7.2 to 8.0 AIC-7901 SCSI not detected



## homemade (Jan 29, 2010)

Hello, 

I have been working with Freebsd since 6.1.  I have a TYAN Transport GT24 B2891 with AIC-7901 SCSI Adapter.
Everything worked well until Upgrading to 8.0.  Freebsd 8 does not detect my hard drives.  Been working on this for about 2 weeks so I know I am missing something, that I do not get.

List Of Scenarios:

1.  Jan 17, 2010 to Jan 20,2010

I tried to update 7.2 to 8.0 via csup.  That does not work because too many compiling errors.
I tried binary update via freebsd-update.  LOL. I had to replacing those comments added by mergemaster via the editor vi.  For some reason it adds something like <<<<<<current version and >>>>>>> version 8 in all etc files.  (I know I could tell mergemaster to leave /etc/ alone , but it was suggest to merge.)  After the 5 time I had to remove all changes by typing them by hand(took a long time).  Well tried to reboot and the system ask for a mount.  The short conclusion, mounts do not work, so on to next theory.

2. Jan. 20, 2010- Jan 23, 2010. I must do some research. 

Some other forums and the notes said check if my disk are in Dangerous Dedicated Mode or "DD" for short.  So, I read the notes to see what that meant.  The notes are really unclear (Like it was written by Shakespeare).  So, to clarify to anyone who reads this and to other dichotomous and robot thinking Com. Sci. hacks, I gathered that DD means only freebsd can read disk drives. You do not want your disk to be "DD" because it may cause problems for BIOS.
Well at the time of doing all this, I thought maybe I am wrong, so I assumed I was in DD mode.  So other forums across the web suggested that I do this in a LiveFS>Fix It Mode.
command at prompt#
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da0 count=1 oseek=1
DO NOT DO IT.  This destroyed my File System because I was not in DD mode.  Okay, I better understand DD mode. On to next step.
3.  Jan 23, 2010 - Jan 29, 2010.  Ok I am stuck, so I know I need to start all over.

I download Freebsd 8.0 live CD ISO and FreeBsd disk1 ISO CD Disk.  I burn them.
I insert FBSD 8.0 ISO DISK.  Long story shortened, it does not install because it tells me no hard disk.  System tells me to check if my controller at boot was probed.
I put in the live 8.0 cd and it loads. I go to FIX IT mode and at the command prompt.
command prompt# ls /dev/
To my expectations, there is no list of the drives. Well on to the next thing.

4.  Lets check and see if  Freebsd 7.2 live can read the disk. I download 7.2 Live and 7.2 disk one.

I put 7.2 live disk in and go to fix it mode. I can mount all my disks.  7.2 recognizes the disk. So something is different about 8.0. On to the next.

5.  I assume 8.0 kernel has dropped some stuff out.

Inserted 8.0 Disk 1 CD.
At the FBSD prompt, I type in 6 to get to the boot loader command line.
Just to make sure AIC7901 drivers are loaded I did these three commands.
load ahd
load ahd.ko
boot
Well, I try to install 8.0, and it cannot find any disk.
 I am desparate and I find myself asking for help at the source.


It has been a long week and I am losing faith.  Can someone help me.  Maybe if I can get my hands on a comparison of the two kernels and see the differences or something.  I don't know.  I am looking for a solution and I do not want to go to debian.  FreeBSD is so much better performance wise for a simple web server running php and apache.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Jan 29, 2010)

see the post "added new..." in the
(10-9-2009 to 11-4-2009)
Hardware subsection, two or so posts
I made would *probably* help, if you
do not know how to load .ko's at
the >boot prompt, another forum search
with the specified .ko's as search
terms would have that info probably.


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## homemade (Jan 29, 2010)

Thanks, I am doing it so right now! I appreciate it. I will also let the forum know.


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## homemade (Jan 29, 2010)

Maybe I have misunderstood your answer, but that forum is no help.
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=7626&highlight=jb_fvwm2

Is there a list of .ko because in this forum I cannot search with keywords .ko or I get no results.  Is there a list of .ko at freebsd.org somewhere.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Jan 30, 2010)

Well, the three mentioned in the post we 
referred to, begin with geom_ and
are in /boot/kernel.   Maybe some other one
than those applies to scsi, OR, you have
not yet loaded them before the sysinstall
tries to install to disk?  
OTOH if it were me, I would 
(all three, why hurry, a good install can serve you many years...)
1.. load those three .ko 
2..  load the .ko which most matches the 
  /dev entries in the dmesg of a 7.2 install
(each in /boot/loader.conf)
3... re-attempt the csup (step one above.  
  I always manage to upgrade 5. 6. / 7. 8 usually,
  although in 30 steps rather than 10 or so.  
  You have another machine to google build errors
while the 7.2 ones builds 8.N. ??


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## homemade (Jan 30, 2010)

Yeah, thanks I understood it correctly, I am going to try your suggestion of using two machines and then loading one by one.  One of those files should work.  If it doesn't then I can live without the FreeBSD on this server.  I needed it up yesterday, so I missed the deadline.  I am a web administrator for non-profit low wealth communities.  So time was limited for me because in my area, there are few computer science people who do work for free or small change; there are so few, I am the only one everyone seems to keep calling.


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## homemade (Jan 30, 2010)

Oh by the way, thanks jb_fvwm2.

I will post the solution later or there will be text stating that I gave up.


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## homemade (Jan 30, 2010)

Ok this is what I have done so far.  I have windiff the contents of 7.2 and 8.0.  The files differentiated from the two folders have nothing to do with 7.2.  So I must assumed it is not a missing ko. It maybe that the ko files have been written differently.  But I did notice at boot on 7.2 my acd0 cd drive outputs no errors.  But on every 8.0 disk I have, an acd0 FAILURE_BIG....comes up twice.  It maybe that the controller is getting mistaken/confused for a CD disk or something.  I will look further into this.

I am going to try to load atapicam and other similar .ko's.


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## homemade (Jan 30, 2010)

Well, doing the follow in any combination does not work.


```
load /boot/kernel/geom_journal.ko
load /boot/kernel/geom_bsd.ko
load /boot/kernel/geom_label.ko
load /boot/kernel/geom_mbr.ko
load /boot/kernel/geom_journal.ko
load /boot/kernel/cam.ko
load /boot/kernel/ahd.ko
```

Loading the aboves do not work.


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## homemade (Jan 31, 2010)

Well, I have compared the boot loader messages of 7.2 to 8.0.

pci0-pci10, and pcib0-pcib10 are detected by 7.2.
pci0-pci3, pcib0-pcib3, and strangley pci8 & pcib8 in 8.0.  It skips many pci and pcib's.
ahd0 is  detected in 7.2 as 
ahd0:<Adaptec AIC7901 Ultra320 SCSI adapter> port 0x3400-0x34ff,
0x30ff mem 0xdf300000-0xdf301fff irq 26 at device 10.0 on pci9
and not in 8.0
aic7901:Ultra320 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, PCI-X 181-133Mhz, 512 SCBs
Now that I notice 7.2 has bge0 and bge1,
8.0 does not have bge0 bge1.  I believe 8.0 will not even detect my ethernet cards. crazy.

Analyis:
7.2 has drivers that work and 8.0 does not.  Maybe they are a little buggy. I am going to do some more research.
This cannot be fixed by adding some drivers at 2(or 3, whichever) boot stage or can it?  I am going to make a decision on what to do
about these $1000/per server  that no longer run upgraded FreeBSD 8.0.  I have to make a decision by Monday, Feb. 1, 2010.

I am a computer scientist, but I haven't written drivers since college using assembly language. 
Is it possible to look at the source code for the drivers and see what is going on?  I don't like to use linux.  I have written many scripts
for freebsd.


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## tingo (Jan 31, 2010)

hint: `# pciconf -lv` can give you more information about which pci devices have drivers and which have not.


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## homemade (Feb 1, 2010)

wow, I wish had that information over the weekend.  Thanks.  I have already installed another operating system, and now I am learning their volume and disk driver methods.

Just in case I come back to freebsd on this system, pciconf -lv probably would have helped me list the pci bus easier, instead of manually sifting through the boot logs.  But I do believe that the drivers for this machine will eventually be deprecated.  So, I am force to go to a OS that I hate.  It is not worth the trouble just to keep up-to-date.

Interesting though, I am now digging deeper into OS's now.  I am interested in developing for FreeBSD.  It is getting whooped by other OS as far as machine support.  I can't let it go.  This is the 7th time I have had to leave FreeBSD.

Thanks everyone who replied and read.
Dan out.


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