This document is intended to explain how to use Ultra-DMA aka Ultra-ATA
aka Ultra33 and Ultra66 hard drives and interfaces with Linux. In many cases there is
no difficulty in using them, but some tweaking can increase performance. In
other cases, you need to go to extraordinary lengths simply to access your
hard drives.
The information in this is document is, to the best of my knowledge, correct, and
should work. However, there may be typos, there may be mysterious
transmission errors, and there may be strange incompatibilities within your
own system that prevent the techniques described herein from working
properly. So... before you go fiddling around with you hard drive, BACK
UP ANY DATA YOU WANT TO KEEP! If you are not already performing regular
backups, please start doing so for your own good.
Michel Aubry - UDMA-enabled
VIA-related patch for <=2.0.33
& more info, grand unified UDMA patch for 2.0.34+
Andrew Balsa - Provided
some general UDMA info and the udma-generic patch for Intel TX, SiS, and VP1
on <=2.0.33; also the grand unified UDMA patch for 2.0.34+
v3.0, 9 November 1999: Finally found time to update some key changes such as
the relocation of the IDE patch archive to the
Kernel.org archives... pesky school!
Updated all sunsite links to new
metalab.unc.edu or
www.linuxdoc.org
v2.1, 27 May 1999: Corrects some minor omissions and errors from 2.0 and adds
information on the Promise Ultra66 and 2.2/2.3 kernels.
v2.0, 7 August 1998: Major updates and almost total restructuring of the
document into onboard (motherboard) and offboard (add-in cards) interfaces;
the Grand Unified UDMA patch(a part of the Jumbo patch)
for 2.0.35. Put credits in alphabetical order by last name. Changed
``controller'' to ``interface'' in many cases to be more technically
correct. Added info on enabling/disabling UDMA, the blacklist, and more!
v1.45, 6 July 1998: Minor updates - Red Hat 5.1 and 2.0.34 patch for
Promise Ultra33, LILO patch for booting off of PCI interfaces such as
the Promise Ultra33
v1.41, 3 May 1998: Fixed a couple of typos, added translators to credits.
v1.4, 28 April 1998: UDMA-Generic patch, some more general info. Copying
section added.
v1.3, 5 March 1998: VIA VP3 info, better patching instructions,
pointer to more recent Promise patch.
v1.2, 27 January 1998: Additional Promise workaround info.
v1.1, 21 January 1998: New info about VIA chipset, installing around
the Promise Ultra33, and enabling Bus Master & UDMA transfer modes.
v1.0, 19 January 1998: More or less complete, first version done in SGML.
This document may be freely copied and distributed for informational
purposes. It may not be modified, except for reformatting, without the
permission of the author. If you wish to translate this document into another
language you may do so, however you should contact the author first so that
updated versions of this document can be sent out to translators as well as
directly to the Linux Documentation Project.