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 including, in the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.local, the line:
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/options.local 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.
?Anchor(supported-devices)
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.
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