david <da...@kenpro.com.au> writes:
> Daniel Pittman wrote:
>> david <da...@kenpro.com.au> writes:
>>>>> (Admittedly, the last is only on really bad hardware, but hey, that
>>>>> hardware is out there and still within the reasonable life of machines
>>>>> for home users.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, once the hardware doesn't die completely you still need the
>>>>> driver stack to notice and remove the now absent hardware from the
>>>>> software "shadow" representation.
>>>> Crap controllers are just that - crap ;-)
>>> Returning to the original inquiry, and now that I know that I have a
>>> 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (Intel) How do I go
>>> about finding out if it's safe to hot-swap?
>>
>> Did you try the libata status report page I posted the link to a while
>> back? That should confirm that your ICH7 supports hotplug.
>>
>
> http://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features
>
> When you posted I didn't know which controller was in there, now I do.
>
> Chip Driver NCQ DMA++ hotplug PMP
> ICH7 family ata_piix, ahci AHCI AHCI AHCI no
>
> Since I still don't want to fry the drive, the question still remains
> (for me at least, given that I'm not as erudite as some).... Will this
> hotplug??
Yes, if you are running it in AHCI mode. Specifically, you have to be
in something other than "compatibility mode" in the BIOS, and it has to
identify as an AHCI controller during boot.
Check the kernel messages after boot to confirm that:
dmesg | grep -i ahci
> especially since other controllers on this page are listed simply as
> "hotplug: yes" rather than "hotplug: AHCI".
Fair point. Sorry, I should have been clearer.
> I guess I could just get an old SATA drive and try it, but from the
> discussion there also seems to be a question mark about frying the
> PSU.
If it makes you feel any better you can't *physically* damage a SATA
device hotplugging it. You could corrupt the data on it if Linux hadn't
written everything out, and you could crash your system, but nothing
worse than that.
Regards,
Daniel
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