Problem with kexec on i386, linux-3.5

[Khalid Aziz]

On 07/24/2012 11:49 AM, Christian Schaubschläger wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this; if it's not, 
> I'd like to apologize.
>
> Here's a short description of my problem:
>
> I have a tiny protected-/real mode program, which I start using kexec 
> (kexec-tools 2.0.3 released 05 April 2012). At some point this program 
> makes a call to extended-int13 to read data from the disk. Now 
> starting with linux-3.5-rc1 (and at least up to linux-3.5) this 
> extended int13 call does not work any more. Apparently the call 
> returns with error code 0x80, which means "timeout (not ready)".
>
> I have two machines here, both with Intel chipsets (one CougarPoint, 
> one older ICH7-M), and I see the same behaviour on both machines.
>
> When I use older kernels (starting from 2.6.something up to 3.4.6), 
> everything works fine.
>
> Now I'm not sure if this is a kernel issue, or a kexec issue, or a 
> mistake by myself. Maybe someone has a hint for me...
>
> If required, of course, I can provide more detailed information about 
> my hardware, kernel config, etc. (since I'm not sure if this is the 
> correct place, I wanted to keep this message short for now).
>

Hello Christian,

Are you not loading the driver for your disk drive controller when the 
new kernel boots up, even though you are not using the driver for disk 
I/O? If yes, the driver should have re-enabled Bus Master bit in its 
init routine. If you are loading the driver, which driver is it? I can 
take a look at it and see if there is anything missing in the 
initialization routine. Can you also include output from "lspci -v" from 
your machine?

Thanks
-- 
Khalid