RE: USB disk corruption on Xen 4.1.0 & Linux 2.6.38.7

From: Ian Pratt <Ian.Pratt@eu.citrix.com>
To: Anthony Wright <anthony@overnetdata.com>,
	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
Cc: Ian Pratt <Ian.Pratt@eu.citrix.com>,
	"xen-devel@lists.xensource.com" <xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
Subject: RE: USB disk corruption on Xen 4.1.0 & Linux 2.6.38.7
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 14:25:50 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4FA716B1526C7C4DB0375C6DADBC4EA3B2C2ABD3DF@LONPMAILBOX01.citrite.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4DF0C67F.6040602@overnetdata.com>

> I've got things running on a number of systems now, and have tried a
> number of combinations. I have changed machines and USB memory sticks,
> and the fault seems to be related to the machine rather than the memory
> stick. I have 3 machines with >4GB ram & 2 memory sticks, changing
> memory sticks doesn't have any effect, but only two out of the three
> machines I tried has a problem, the third works fine.

If you're copying the data from the hard disk, you should check that you have the BIOS set to operate the SATA controller in AHCI mode rather than legacy IDE.  I've seen the legacy IDE driver tickle swiotlb issues too above 4GB.

Ian

> I have previously attached the lspci -vvv for one of the machines that
> fails, and the lspci -vvv for the second machine is attached to an email
> relating to the screen corruption problems I was having a few days ago
> (Screen corruption and crash at boot with Xen 4.1.0 & linux 2.6.39 on
> some systems).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Anthony
> 
> On 02/06/2011 15:44, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 02, 2011 at 10:38:07AM -0400, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> >> On Thu, Jun 02, 2011 at 01:24:56PM +0100, Anthony Wright wrote:
> >>>> Do you get the same problem if you boot baremetal and do
> 'iommu=soft' (without the mem=4G)? You should see the same error.
> >>> I'm not quite sure what you mean by "boot baremetal", but I've just
> done a boot where I removed the mem=4096M options from the Xen boot
> line and added an 'iommu=soft' option. The result of this was a corrupt USB
> device again.
> >> Baremetal = no Xen.
> >>>> Can you attach your lspci -vvv output too please?
> >>> attached.
> >>>
> >>>> This is the motherboard you have right?
> >>>>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131613
> >>> Yes that's the motherboard.
> > I've an BIOSTART motherboard that looks to have a similar EHCI controller -
> MCP61 based.
> > Is the USB stick that you are using any special? Or is just a normal one?