On Tue, 2004-08-10 at 00:57, Jeff Garzik wrote:

It needs to check for "status != 0x7f" which is the standard "no device 
here" return status.

Nope, it waits for BSY to go down

But worse than that, status can return 0xFF for "no hardware there", in 
which case this routine will hang the boot for 35 seconds.

My original version did, let me check.. yes, the current code does that
too, check ide_wait_not_busy. Note that this is a workaround for broken
hardware as the spec clearly says that D7 should be pulled low so that
no drive returns 0x7f (BSY clear). However, there is a significant
amount of HW with this bug...

Note also that libata code does this:
* wait 7 seconds
* printk("it's taking a long time, be patient")
* wait ~30 seconds

That could be a good idea. Patch welcome :)

Ben.