Re: Sil3114 SATAlink card in U5/U10

[Michael <macallan1888%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hello,

On Thu, 1 Sep 2011 14:16:48 -0700
Gordon Zaft <gordonzaft%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:

>  I have several Sil3114 SATA/150 cards I'd like to use in several U5
> and U10s I have.(they are Rosewill RC-222).  I did some googling
> around on this and the answers I got were a little conflicting.  It
> would appear I can use them as-is for additional storage but not for a
> boot drive.
> 
> Of course I'd like to boot from the card if possible.

Booting from it would require the Sun's firmware to know how to use the card, 
which requires firmware on the card, which is x86, which is useless on a SPARC.

>  I found this reference: http://netbsd.org/ports/sparc64/faq.html#pci-cards :
> 
> Some standard PCI cards "just work" in NetBSD/sparc64, such as network
> cards, IDE cards, etc. However, for these cards to be recognised by
> the PROM, you need to update the SUNW,builtin-drivers FCode package to
> force the device into native PCI mode.

If your SATA card is good enough at playing ATA it might work but I wouldn't 
bet on it. The U5/U10 was around long before SATA was invented so there is no 
SATA support in the onboard firmware.
 
> Lloyd Parkes has provided the nvram commands to have a "standard" IDE
> controller recognised correctly by the PROM.
> 
> dev /packages/SUNW,builtin-drivers
> : class018000
> f 9 my-space + " config-b!" $call-parent class010100
> ;
> device-end
> 
> Two points -- 1) I have no idea how to  use the info above -- I am
> assuming this is done at the OpenBoot prompt but not clear how/where
> to enter it and whether it is "sticky" or has to be done every time I
> power on the machine.  and 

These are OF commands which need to run every time OF initializes.

> 2) I'm wondering if I need to use the Sil3114 "IDE" BIOS on the card in
> order to boot from it.

How would an x86 BIOS help on a sparc CPU running OpenFirmware?

You're probably best off getting an ATA->CompactFlash converter ( they're cheap 
and they're available as cards you can stick directly into the onboard IDE 
connector ) and a CF card to load a kernel from which then finds and uses your 
SATA card.

have fun
Michael