[SunHELP] Can't use flash memory as an IDE device (netra X1) (embedded solaris)

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As many of you probably know, sandisk compact-flash flash memory actually 
pins out directly to IDE.  In fact, every computer I have ever plugged a CF 
flash card into the IDE chain, it has seen it as just a plain old IDE device 
- albeit small.

I have mounted these devices with no special precautions in freeBSD, linux, 
windows, and ms-dos.  That is, I just plugged it in on the chain and booted 
and the OS saw an IDE device of 64 or 128 megs.

Enter the Sun Netra X1.

My netra X1 is running just fine.  It boots up and loads the OS and everyone 
is happy.  Then I turn it off, and plug in the compact flash card into the 
IDE bus.  Power on and do a probe-ide:

ok probe-ide
  Device 0  ( Primary Master )
          ATA Model: ST320413A

  Device 1  ( Primary Slave )
         Removable ATAPI Model: SanDisk SDCFB-128

  Device 2  ( Secondary Master )
         Not Present

  Device 3  ( Secondary Slave )
         Not Present

ok


So far, so good ... then I boot.  And for some reason, the machine starts 
booting from the hard drive (which is good) and then just bombs out (which 
is bad).  Here is what it looks like:

<begin_big_paste>

ok boot
Boot device: disk  File and args:
Loading ufs-file-system package 1.4 04 Aug 1995 13:02:54.
FCode UFS Reader 1.11 97/07/10 16:19:15.
Loading: /platform/SUNW,UltraAX-i2/ufsboot
Loading: /platform/sun4u/ufsboot
SunOS Release 5.8 Version Generic_108528-06 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
WARNING: pcipsy0: ino c is invalid
WARNING: pcipsy0: ino c is invalid
Cannot assemble drivers for root /pci at 1f,0/ide at d/disk at 0,0:a
Cannot mount root on /pci at 1f,0/ide at d/disk at 0,0:a fstype ufs

panic[cpu0]/thread=10408000: vfs_mountroot: cannot mount root

0000000010407970 genunix:vfs_mountroot+70 (10435400, 0, 0, 104108d8, 10, 14)
  %l0-3: 0000000010435400 0000000010438b58 000000006e000000 00000000104357f0
  %l4-7: 0000000000000000 00000000104135a8 00000000000b514c 000000000000114c
0000000010407a20 genunix:main+94 (10410120, 2000, 10407ec0, 10408030, fff2, 
1004df8c)
  %l0-3: 0000000000000001 0000000000000001 0000000000000015 0000000000000e69
  %l4-7: 00000000104287d0 0000000010461d48 00000000000ca6a0 0000000000000540

skipping system dump - no dump device configured
rebooting...


</begin_big_paste>


Ok.  So then I remove the flash device from the IDE chain, and the machine 
boots just fine again.  So at the highest level of abstraction, I can 
conclude that the OS I am booting on my hard drive (solaris 8) does not know 
what this device is, and is _so_ confused by it that it refuses to boot.

My plan is to boot the OS with the hard drive AND the compact flash card, 
mount the CF card as an IDE device (which should work fine, since it IS an 
IDE device) then build an OS on the card, then power off and then boot with 
JUST the card.

So I have two problems.  First, I can't boot my hard drive when the CF is on 
the chain.  Second, (and this might be the easier problem to solve) I need 
to then boot off the CF itself.  I think that will be easier because I can 
just make a nvalias to that device and tell the system to boot off of it, 
and then whatever I did to make the hard drive boot with it there, I will do 
to the OS that I put on it.

So anyway, anyone have any idea what is going wrong here ?

It _definitely_ will work just fine as an IDE hard drive - if the OS wasn't 
trying to be so smart and trying to figure out what it was, everything would 
be fine.  Therefore I need to either:

a) somehow tell the OS on my hard drive that "the device at hardware address 
X is an IDE hard drive, so shut up about it - I don't care what you think" - 
at which time it would use it as an IDE hard drive and everything would be 
fine.

b) some more elegant solution :)

You will note that in the probe-ide output, it looks like a cd rom drive - 
perhaps this is the problem ?  It lists in probe-ide as an atapi device and 
not an ATA device .... so this is a clue.  If I could get it to come up as 
ATA (not likely) or if I could tell the OS that was loading to treat ATAPI 
like ATA ... or something ... then that might work as well.

_ANY_ comments, suggestions, etc. appreciated.

thanks,

LT

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