Return to Question

I've managed to find a workaround to get these disks to be detected and mount. The initrd needs to be remade --with=sata_sil. Adding it to /etc/modules.conf isn't enough.

mkinitrd --with=sata_sil /boot/initrd-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

There is still one more step though. modprobe sata_sil needs to be called after the system has booted, either manually or through rc.local. The output is also different from before, with additional output showing that the drive has been attached.

I've managed to find a workaround to get these disks to be detected and mount. The initrd needs to be remade using the options --with=scsi_mod --with=sd_mod --with=sata_sil. Adding these modules to /etc/modules.conf doesn't make a difference.

mkinitrd --with=scsi_mod --with=sd_mod --with=sata_sil /boot/initrd-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

There is still one more step though. modprobe sata_sil still needs to be called after the system has booted, either manually or through rc.local. The output is also different from before, with additional output showing that the drive has been attached.

Progress

I've managed to find a workaround to get these disks to be detected and mount. The initrd needs to be remade --with=sata_sil. Adding it to /etc/modules.conf isn't enough.

mkinitrd --with=sata_sil /boot/initrd-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

There is still one more step though. modprobe sata_sil needs to be called after the system has booted, either manually or through rc.local. The output is also different from before, with additional output showing that the drive has been attached.

# modprobe sata_sil
  Vendor: ATA       Model: Samsung SSD 850   Rev: EXM0
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 250069680 512-byte hdwr sectors (128036 MB)

Although this does allow me to mount a SATA drive, because the process does not occur automatically during the boot process, I cannot boot from this drive, which is my intention.

I can confirm that this isn't an issue with the sata_sil kernel module specifically. I replicated the same problem and workaround with a Promise branded SATA controller.

How can I get the system to load this module automatically and early enough so that it can be made bootable?