Friday, November 27, 2009

SATA in a Cobalt Qube 2?

I have a SIL SATA card what I was bought to use with my main server with Strongbolt 2 but the idea was to boot from it and... this is not possible. This week I was playing with my RaQ's and I decided to test this card with the Qube 2. I know the Qube 2 ROM can't detect it or boot from it (normal) but I was thinking that maybe the Debian kernel can do.

This is the Qube 2 with the Silicon Image SATA card and a Seagate 7200.10 160 GB attached:


The kernel detected the card and the hard disk as you can see here:

Now it's time to learn how Debian works and mount the disk. Maybe tomorrow...

12 comments:

Walter Jansen said...

Anddid you manage to boot from the 160Gb drive?

Titox said...

No. Boot from SATA HD is impossible due ROM limitations. The SATA PCI card is detected but not recognized by ROM, the new kernel is who is configuring SATA cards and devices, and this new kernel must be loaded from and IDE disk. Once the system is booted, the Debian system can mount the hard disk and I have it shared to the network with Samba. I can see the Qube from my Windows Vista laptop but I cant access to it because I have problems with the passwords...

Tonight I will double check the configs..

Another thing is to use an small Memory card to install CoLo, and then boot from the SATA disk, but a new CoLo release with the SATA drivers must be created... too much work for this small and old machine..

Thank for post, Walter.
Alberto.

Anonymous said...

Maybe a IDE flash or SSD could help.
Debian on the Falsh or SSD, then mount and share the new HD.

Good luck, keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

XP should see the share. For Vista you need to update Samba to the latest.

Titox said...

Finally, the problem was that I had to setup a new password in Samba. I don't know why exactly because this is the firs time with Samba but now works..

Walter Jansen said...

Hallo Titox,

Have you tried to use a bigger disk then the 160Gb? I wonder how big it will support.

If it supports a 1Tbyte disk, you have turned your Qube 2 into a very nice Teraqube.

Regards Walter

Titox said...

No. This is a long holyday weekend here and I'm out of home. i don't have any 1TB disk but 500GB. As soon as I have time I'll check but I think it must work good.

Walter Jansen said...

I have a qube3 here (used to have 2 qube2's running) and would like to try this setup for the qube3.

Can you post what type Sata you used on the qube2?

Regards Walter

Titox said...

It's an unbranded SIL3212 card. I bouth it in an auction one year ago. Any kind of card's with this chipset (or SIL3114) must work on the Qube 2.

In the case of the Qube 3 this is very different. If your are using your custom kernel it must work, as well as VIA chipset cards if you have the driver modules compiled. Stock Qube 3 release doesn't work..

If you are not compiling your own kernel, you need Strongbolt 2 to run it. Maybe the SB2 kernel can run VIA cards also, but I don't have any card.

I bought this card because the SB2 ROM and kernel can detect it as advertised by developers, but the SB2 installer can't install the OS in SATA disks... they never finished the development.

Titox said...

>> It's an unbranded SIL3212 card.

Sorry, it's an SIL3112-

Walter Jansen said...

Hello Titox,

Got a SIL3112 card today via Ebay. I'm looking for a good distro and howto to install it on to the Cube.

I'm thinking about Debian, but any suggestions are welcome.

Keep you informed.
Regards.

Walter Jansen said...

I'm going to place the SATA card in my Cube3 as earlier said.

Regards.