Re: SATA errors accessing hidden partitions

[Bryan Gurney <bgurney@redhat.com>]

On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 4:03 AM Jorge Fernandez Monteagudo
<jorgefm@cirsa.com> wrote:
>
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I have a SSD disk from transcend with 6 partitions, where partitions 3, 4 and 5 are locked. This disk implements the OPAL specifications and transcend supplies some tools to hide/unhide a partition.
> >
> >OPAL does not have a concept to hide a partition, it supports locking
> >ranges.  In doubt you want to use the kernel opal support to unlock all
> >ranges and should be fine, otherwise there isn't too much we can do.
>
> You're right. We are  using locking ranges and these partitions are mapped onto these ranges.
> We're try too with a locked range without any partition inside an the system tries to access the
> locked range. We're wondering why kernel? blkid? is trying to get info from a locked range??
> The outcome is a SATA link in 1.5Gbps after a long time boot. In windows or MacOSx works in
> other way.
>
> Thanks!
> Jorge

Here's a quick grep of the dmesg you sent earlier (apologies if
there's any line wrapping):

$ egrep 'blocks|Buffer|print_req_error|Gbps'
20190910_linux-ide-jfernandez_deb_syserror_opaldrive.txt
[    1.506617] ahci 0000:00:11.0: AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 2 ports 6
Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode
[    1.984614] ata1: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    1.988604] ata2: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    7.664613] ata2: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    7.694638] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 62533296 512-byte logical blocks:
(32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
[    7.694674] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 125045424 512-byte logical blocks:
(64.0 GB/59.6 GiB)
[    7.742149] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 54732672
[    7.774167] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 46344064
[    7.841977] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 50538368
[    7.964634] ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 3.0 Gbps
[    8.444612] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 320)
[    8.584387] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 46344064
[    8.585346] Buffer I/O error on dev sda3, logical block 524272,
async page read
[    8.624635] ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
[    9.104613] ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)
[    9.152565] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 54732672
[    9.153517] Buffer I/O error on dev sda5, logical block 524272,
async page read
[    9.184662] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 50538368
[    9.185625] Buffer I/O error on dev sda4, logical block 524272,
async page read
[   10.545916] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 46344064
[   10.595852] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 54732672
[   10.666024] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 50538368
[   11.197218] ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)
[   11.694090] print_req_error: I/O error, dev sda, sector 46344064
[   11.694098] Buffer I/O error on dev sda3, logical block 524272,
async page read
[   11.721959] Buffer I/O error on dev sda4, logical block 524272,
async page read
[   11.750000] Buffer I/O error on dev sda5, logical block 524272,
async page read

Notice that logical block 524272 on devices sda3, sda4, and sda5 are
cited.  This is a blind guess, but are these partitions 524288 sectors
(256 MB) in size?

When blkid reads a device or a partition, there's a certain sequence
of reads that it performs, at various offsets in the device.  Via
blktrace / blkparse, you can see this activity.

For an example device with a partition that starts at sector 2048, and
ends at sector 3019900928:
# blktrace -d /dev/nvme0n1p1
(Ctrl+C)
...
# blkparse -i nvme0n1p1.blktrace.0 | grep C\ *
259,1    9        7     0.000096020     0  C   R 3019900800 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       14     0.000193530     0  C   R 3019900912 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       21     0.000260749     0  C   R 2048 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       28     0.000327329     0  C   R 2056 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       35     0.000416985     0  C   R 3019900920 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       42     0.000516949     0  C   R 3019900664 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       49     0.000662515     0  C   R 2080 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       56     0.000755225     0  C   R 2112 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       63     0.000845546     0  C   R 2176 + 8 [0]
259,1    9       70     0.000936905     0  C   R 2304 + 8 [0]

...and so on.  (The device major,minor says "259,1", which would be
/dev/nvme0n1p1, but the offset shown in the block trace is relative to
/dev/nvme0n1.)

You can notice that the first few reads are near the "end" of the
partition.  In fact, the first two read completions are 128 sectors
before the end, and 16 sectors before the end.  I'm guessing that this
"-16" read is the one that's failing in these three partitions.


Thanks,

Bryan