If I've removed my CD/DVD drive and HDD what exactly are ata4 and ata5?

Question

   dmesg|grep ata
   [    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000baf9f000-0x00000000baffefff] ACPI data
   [    0.000000] ACPI: SSDT 0x00000000BAFFA000 000797 (v01 LENOVO SataAhci 00001000 INTL 20061109)
   [    0.000000] Memory: 3844300K/4074744K available (7921K kernel code, 1237K rwdata, 3800K rodata, 1452K init, 1292K bss, 230444K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
   [    0.206852] ACPI : EC: GPE = 0x11, I/O: command/status = 0x66, data = 0x62
   [    0.207485] libata version 3.00 loaded.
   [   10.598870] Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 12288k
   [   10.928868] ata1: DUMMY
   [   10.928876] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf3928000 port 0xf3928180 irq 28
   [   10.928879] ata3: DUMMY
   [   10.928884] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf3928000 port 0xf3928280 irq 28
   [   10.928889] ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf3928000 port 0xf3928300 irq 28
   [   10.928892] ata6: DUMMY
   [   11.245550] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
   [   11.569704] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
   [   11.889758] ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
   [   13.113286] FAT-fs (sda1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.
   [   24.842299] EXT4-fs (loop0): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
   [   58.960374] systemd[1]: Listening on LVM2 metadata daemon socket.
   [   59.023418] systemd[1]: Starting Increase datagram queue length...
   [   59.129501] systemd[1]: Started Increase datagram queue length.
   [   59.273572] systemd[1]: Started LVM2 metadata daemon.

I've been having some random rebooting issues with my T520. I've seen Serror{DevExch} errors with ata4. The system crashes everytime it gets the error when the grub settings are for SATA3 for all ata devices and ever 3rd to 5th time on SATA II. I've seen it crash previously while booting off the USB I'm currently using to ask this question while the HDD was in the machine. There are no errors now however. What I'm suspecting is that the device listed has some king of issue with the SATA setup. But I need to know what it is.

The drive I'm currently using is attached via USB as shown in lsscssi. So it should not and does not have an ata name.

ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ lsscsi -t
[6:0:0:0]    disk    usb: 2-1.1:1.0                  /dev/sda

What *what* is? You are showing various devices there and we don't know your hardware. What is the file you are showing? Is it a log file or `dmesg`? You must have at least one drive connected or you wouldn't boot. Which one is your connected drive? Please [edit] your question and clarify. — terdon, Oct 22 '15 at 13:31

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

What exactly are ata4 and ata5?

ATA-4: Ultra DMA 33 or ATA33
ATA-5: Ultra DMA 66 or ATA66

Those are your connectors on your motherboard (or if you have it a PCI(-E) card). The system shows these as present but that does not imply there is a SATA cable connected to a SATA drive (the latter will have its own line in dmesg).

The system crashes everytime it gets the error when the grub settings are for SATA3 for all ata devices and ever 3rd to 5th time on SATA II.

Could be a problem with the motherboard, the connectors or the hardisk connected to it.

But to make this not totally off-topic...

There are no errors now however.

Place to look /var/log/boot.log and /var/log/kern.log. After a crash use the safe boot method or a live session to check the logs (sometimes logs tend to be overwritten :) ).
Serror{DevExch} could be an IRQ problem. I have seen it happen where nVidia with their driver conflicted with the AHCI. Removing the driver would prevent the crashes.

By the way: "Serror{DevExch}" should have something between the "Serror" and "{DevExch}". At least most searches on google have a notice in between. Like in this related topic: Mysterious Hard Disk Failure? (SError: { CommWake DevExch })

Pastebin.com/HEhUzUrb looks like there is nothing there between the them. Might be nvidia related — West, Oct 22 '15 at 14:23

If I've removed my CD/DVD drive and HDD what exactly are ata4 and ata5?

1 Answers1