I've got some more logs, and I'm not really sure what they mean.
Some random, possibly interesting facts (some reiterated from before):
- if the SATA->PATA adapter is a slave, then the ethernet is recognised (although writing this I realise that I didn't test if the ethernet actually works).
- SATA->PATA works fine (albeit stomping on USB and network) with a spinning disk, was able to build disk and also copy about 60G of music to it, with no errors that I noticed.
- SSD with SATA->PATA has issues with writing. Errors generally look like:
hdb: lost interrupt
hdb: stat_err: status=0x58
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xd0
ide0: reset timed-out, status=0x80
(See attached log of mke2fs for details) - I did once see errors like this, but haven't been able to reproduce reliably:
hdb: stat_timo: status=0x80
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 262232
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_err: status=0xff
hdb: no DRQ after issuing WRITE
- SSD advertises itself as having a 0kb cache, (see attached output from hdparm -i/-I) I wonder if that might be part of the problem.
In the absence of suggestions I'll just keep pottering away. I'll post here in the event of a breakthrough.
Cheers,
Richard.