[GRLUG] So I have this laptop...

[Michael Mol]

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Mike Williams <knightperson at zuzax.com> wrote:
> Hmmm. Well, I do have a full complement of host0 through host5 entries, but
> only the host0 has a target0:0:0 directory under it. Which makes sense since
> that's the only one that actually has anything attached to it. That's fairly
> encouraging, combined with my theory that this laptop's chassis and
> motherboard are used for quite a few different models, some of which are
> intended to actually use that second bay.
>
> The other worry is the BIOS, since it only has entries for one hard drive
> and once CD. But at worst that would only mean that I couldn't boot from the
> second drive, right? If I boot from the existing one, Linux would be able to
> find a drive in the second one by querying the controller, wouldn't it?

I really don't know. I could see a couple scenarios playing out,
equally reasonable:

1) The AHCI controller is sufficiently self-contained that BIOS
doesn't do anything special during initial boot-time setup, and that
the AHCI controller would find a device plugged into your 'new' SATA
header.
2) The AHCI controller is configured by the BIOS at boot time,
including values that influence how many SATA ports are connected and
where it looks for them. (This kind of thing isn't unheard-of. If you
have "Intel HD Audio", as I think most onboard sound devices are these
days, you might be interested to know that chip-internal signal
routing is configured by an OS driver)

In all honesty, I think the first scenario is more probable; BIOS
isn't something a manufacturer wants any more complexity (and thus
bugfixing) than necessary, so it strikes me as more likely they'd
source parts which can configure and manage themselves.

-- 
:wq

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