Ubuntu
linux-source-2.6.20 package

  1. Bug #84964
  2. Comment #24

Comment 24 for bug 84964

Revision history for this message
Mark McKenzie (mark-errai) wrote : Re: Kernel 2.6.20-8 does not boot

Hi

I recently did an upgrade from Edgy to Feisty on AMD64 (core 2 duo on an intel p965 chipset w/jmicron PATA) and found the same issue

I nailed it down to a race condition in the boot process. Basically, when you're booting off your local disk, the "piix" driver (the old driver) always wins, and since it seems broken the system doesn't boot. However, when you're booting off CD the ata_piix driver sometimes wins, and you can access your disk.

Proof that it was the piix driver: I ripped apart the initrd for 2.6.20-8, removed /lib/modules/*/kernel/drivers/ide/pci/*, and rebuilt it. Worked like a treat.

A solution might be to have the libata based drivers attempt to load in the boot process before the old style ones. The older drivers don't seem to cause any issues if they're loaded after libata.