Recently Ubuntu stopped mounting (or even seeing) one of my hard disks. I assumed the disk had failed so I replaced it only to find it's not actually the disk itself. It seems to be something to do with one of the SATA connectors. But it's not "dead", Ubuntu is seeing the disk but not attaching it.
I wondered if there is anything I can do/try to resolve this?
When I connect a disk successfully I get the following dmesg output:
[1979542.453246] ata4: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
[1979546.737295] ata4: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
[1979547.449311] ata4: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[1979547.450138] ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Could not resolve symbol [\_SB.PCI0.SAT0.PRT3._GTF.DSSP], AE_NOT_FOUND (20210730/psargs-330)
[1979547.450147] No Local Variables are initialized for Method [_GTF]
[1979547.450148] No Arguments are initialized for method [_GTF]
[1979547.450150] ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.PCI0.SAT0.PRT3._GTF due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20210730/psparse-529)
[1979547.450158] ata4.00: ATA-7: WDC WD5000AAKS-65TMA0, 12.01C01, max UDMA/133
[1979547.450372] ata4.00: 976773168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 32), AA
[1979547.451337] ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Could not resolve symbol [\_SB.PCI0.SAT0.PRT3._GTF.DSSP], AE_NOT_FOUND (20210730/psargs-330)
[1979547.451344] No Local Variables are initialized for Method [_GTF]
[1979547.451345] No Arguments are initialized for method [_GTF]
[1979547.451347] ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.PCI0.SAT0.PRT3._GTF due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20210730/psparse-529)
[1979547.451583] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
[1979547.451643] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA WDC WD5000AAKS-6 1C01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[1979547.451843] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[1979547.451943] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] 976773168 512-byte logical blocks: (500 GB/466 GiB)
[1979547.451987] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[1979547.451990] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[1979547.452045] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[1979547.472061] sdd: sdd1
[1979547.497323] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
But when I connect a disk to the 5th SATA connector I get the same up until ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133 but then nothing else:
[1979625.270190] ata4: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
[1979625.450202] ata4: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[1979625.450983] ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Could not resolve symbol [\_SB.PCI0.SAT0.PRT3._GTF.DSSP], AE_NOT_FOUND (20210730/psargs-330)
[1979625.450992] No Local Variables are initialized for Method [_GTF]
[1979625.450994] No Arguments are initialized for method [_GTF]
[1979625.450995] ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.PCI0.SAT0.PRT3._GTF due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20210730/psparse-529)
[1979625.452066] ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Could not resolve symbol [\_SB.PCI0.SAT0.PRT3._GTF.DSSP], AE_NOT_FOUND (20210730/psargs-330)
[1979625.452073] No Local Variables are initialized for Method [_GTF]
[1979625.452075] No Arguments are initialized for method [_GTF]
[1979625.452077] ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.PCI0.SAT0.PRT3._GTF due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20210730/psparse-529)
[1979625.452165] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
I have Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS with a MSI Z170A motherboard. It has 6 SATA 3 connectors and I have 1 internal HD and 4 hot-swappable SATA caddies all with hard disks.
An update for anyone else in future - it did seem to be a hardware/motherboard issue where the 5th and 6th SATA ports stopped working correctly.
I saw StarTech list Linux compatibility so I purchased a StarTech 2P6G-PCIE-SATA-CARD for £33 in the UK and it seems to work fine, no config required.