Using the Marvell 88SE61xx controllers
The procedure given below explains the steps that were taken to use the Marvell 88SE6121 controller on an Asus M2V motherboard with SATA disk (other supported devices are listed at the bottom of the page).
To begin, in the BIOS, the Marvell controller should be enabled. When enabled, the output of the command lspci -nn should include a line resembling:
06:00.0 IDE interface [0101]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6121 SATA II Controller [11ab:6121] (rev b1)
The Marvell 88SE6121 can control parallel ATA devices, but on the Asus M2V, no parallel ATA connectors are connected to the Marvell controller. As a result of this, the pata_marvell kernel module should be disabled. This can be done by creating, a file /etc/modprobe.d/my-marvell.conf, containing:
install pata_marvell /bin/true
Additionally, the ahci kernel module must be loaded, and it should use the option marvell_enable. The module seems to load automatically on Debian 5.0 (lenny.) In order to use the marvell_enable option, the file /etc/modprobe.d/my-marvel.conf should include the line:
options ahci marvell_enable=1
At this point, the initramfs image should be re-created with the command:
update-initramfs -u
Upon rebooting, it should be possible to use a SATA disk connected to the Marvell controller. Depending on whether, and how, the operating system was configured prior to enabling the Marvell controller, re-ordering disks in the BIOS may be necessary.
Supported Devices
The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.
The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo pata_marvell on Lenny.
PCI: 11AB:6101 Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6101 single-port PATA133 interface PCI: 11AB:6121 Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6121 SATA II Controller PCI: 11AB:6123 Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (Device name unknown) PCI: 11AB:6145 Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6145 SATA II PCI-E controller
See also
Reference: http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/9/2/272