Re: [SLUG] HOT SWAPPING - back to the OP ;-)

[david <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Daniel Pittman wrote:
> david <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> > Daniel Pittman wrote:
> > > david <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> > > > > > (Admittedly, the last is only on really bad hardware, but hey, that
> > > > > > hardware is out there and still within the reasonable life of machines
> > > > > > for home users.)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Anyway, once the hardware doesn't die completely you still need the
> > > > > > driver stack to notice and remove the now absent hardware from the
> > > > > > software "shadow" representation.
> > > > > Crap controllers are just that - crap ;-)
> > > > Returning to the original inquiry, and now that I know that I have a
> > > > 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (Intel) How do I go
> > > > about finding out if it's safe to hot-swap?
> > > Did you try the libata status report page I posted the link to a while
> > > back?  That should confirm that your ICH7 supports hotplug.
> > http://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features
> >
> > When you posted I didn't know which controller was in there, now I do.
> >
> > Chip		Driver		NCQ	DMA++	hotplug		PMP
> > ICH7 family	ata_piix, ahci	AHCI	AHCI	AHCI		no
> >
> > Since I still don't want to fry the drive, the question still remains
> > (for me at least, given that I'm not as erudite as some).... Will this
> > hotplug??
>
> Yes, if you are running it in AHCI mode.  Specifically, you have to be
> in something other than "compatibility mode" in the BIOS, and it has to
> identify as an AHCI controller during boot.
>
> Check the kernel messages after boot to confirm that:
>
>     dmesg | grep -i ahci


Nothing in dmesg. As far as I can see, nothing in BIOS :(

This seems to suggest that hot swapping this particular configuration is a bad 
idea. And yet Gnome was telling me that I could remove the media. Is this a bug?

Unfortunately, hardware specifications tend to tell you what a 
BIOS/Controller/MB *has*, not what it doesn't have. Which means that for people 
like me, it comes down to

* asking in expert forums (like SLUG?)
* guess and hope for the best
* do nothing.

Not being able to hot-swap for me is mostly an inconvenience rather than a 
disaster, but I recently had an emergency situations where I would REALLY liked 
to have been able to hot swap.

regards,

David.

PS: the technical discussion about hot-swapping is fascinating, but I would 
still like to solve the immediate problem.