Bug 601719

Created attachment 358430 [details]
hardware info, taken from openSuSE 10.2 due to since 10.3 the support for it is broken.

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #601718 +++

Created an attachment (id=358429)
hardware info, taken from openSuSE 10.2 due to since 10.3 the support for it is broken.

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #599508 +++

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; es-ES; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100317 SUSE/3.5.9-0.1.1 Firefox/3.5.9

I really do not know what else to say: I often assemble my computers (personal or familiar) and it is a VIA Motherboard I bought new late 2006. Soon after that, I installed on it openSuSE 10.2, and it is still running 10.2 today, and works fine, very fine.
In fact, 10.2 was a very fine release.
However, the upgrade was needed and I tried to install openSuSE 11.2 on it yesterday [sic: it is a cloned bug], after I were sure that the major bugs I had to deal were fixed.
However, the install system told me that there was no HDD to perform the install.
I tried a different kernel at the boot up time; I tried loading one by one almost all kernel modules in the section IDE/SCSI/RAID that were intended for SATA; I realized that the the load of ahci was delayed, so I suggested to the kernel brokenmodules=ahci; & c.
After my useless efforts, I decided to try a passed version: 11.0 Final x86_64. I had the same result.
So, I took an older version: 10.3 Final x86_64... and it was the same result!
I can state the following: after 10.2, SATA HDDs attached to SouthBridge VIA VT 8251's SATA are not detected during installation of 10.3, 11.0 and 11.2, and it is pretty sure that 11.1 neither detects the SATA HDD attacheed to 8251.

From 11.2 I got the following output:
ata1.00 failed to IDENTIFIED (I/O error, error_mask 0x4)
ata1.00 SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
ata1.00 qc time out (cmd 0xec)
N. B.:
line 2: SControl: I think it was what I read yesterday.

I hope that you might suggest me what else to do to install a newer version of openSuSE in that computer, and that you might fix this for 11.3.
I thank you.

**** CONCERNING openSuSE 11.3 M5 & M6: ****
**** Actually, openSuSE 11.3 M5 and M6 have the same problem as well. ****

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Just run the install on a motherboard whose SATA HDDs were attached VIA VT 8251.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
SATA HDDs are not detected by the installation systems of openSuSE 10.3, 11.0, [11.1,] 11.2 Final x86_64, and 11.3 M5 x86_64 and 11.3 M6 x86_64.
Expected Results:  
SATA HDDs be detected by the installation systems of openSuSE 10.3, 11.0, [11.1,] 11.2 Final x86_64, and 11.3 M5 x86_64, 11.3 M6 x86_64, and, hopefully, the following pre-releases of 11.3, and openSuSE 11.3 x86_64 Final itself.

openSuSE 10.2 works very fine.