Installer does not detect Supermicro Marvell SATA Controller.

Problem:

Installer does not detect the Marvell SATA controller.

Details:

No mainstream Linux currently ships with a driver for this controller.

Solution:

ASL provides a driver disk and source rpm for the Marvell SATA controller. To re-install the system, please follow these instructions:

  1. Create the Marvell SATA driver floppy if necessary from the ASL Driver CD. A driver disk is included on systems purchased with SuSE Linux 9.3. 
    mount /media/cdrecorder
dd if=/media/cdrecorder/SuSE/9.3/x86_64/marvellsata-3_4_1-2.6.11.4-20a.img of=/dev/fd0
umount /media/cdrecorder
  2. Boot the system from the SuSE 9.3 installation DVD
  3. At the installation menu, press F5 to use an driver disk
  4. Select installation from the menu
  5. When prompted, insert the driver floppy
  6. When asked to select the driver update medium, choose "fd0: floppy"
  7. There installer should print "Driver Update OK"
  8. Select back to continue the installation Create

If an online update is performed, the kernel will be upgraded by default. Before rebooting into the new kernel, the Marvell SATA driver must be rebuilt with the steps below. Failure to perform this step will result in an unbootable system:

  1. Insert the ASL Driver CD into the DVD drive
  2. Rebuild the driver 
    # mount /dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder
# rpm -ivh /media/cdrecorder/SuSE/9.3/marvellsata-3.4.1-2.6.11.4-1.src.rpm
# cd /usr/src/packages/SPECS
# /media/cdrecorder/SuSE/9.3/suse93driver.sh marvellsata
# umount /media/cdrecorder
  3. Reboot the system to use the new kernel

If the system no longer boots because these steps above are not performed, use the following procedure to correct the problem.

  1. Boot the system from the SuSE 9.3 DVD media.
  2. Insert the Marvell SATA driver floppy
  3. Hit F5 to enable device driver disk
  4. Select Rescue System
  5. Select Back
  6. Select OK to use English as the default language
  7. Determine the root filesystem. The remaining steps assume the root filesystem is /dev/sda2. If necessary, replace /dev/sda2 with the appropriate entry
  8. Mount the root filesystem 
    # mkdir /mnt/suse
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/suse
# chroot /mnt/suse
  9. Eject the SUSE 9.3 DVD media
  10. Insert the ASL Driver CD
  11. Rebuild the driver 
    # mount /dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder
# rpm -ivh /media/cdrecorder/SuSE/9.3/marvellsata-3.4.1-2.6.11.4-1.src.rpm
# cd /usr/src/packages/SPECS
# /media/cdrecorder/SuSE/9.3/suse93driver.sh marvellsata
# umount /media/cdrecorder
  12. Eject the ASL Driver CD
  13. Reboot the system 
    # exit
# umount /mnt/suse
#reboot

Note: For systems with a DVD recorder, replace 'cdrecorder' with 'dvdrecorder'