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So, there were already questions about ignoring ata devices (like How to tell Linux Kernel > 3.0 to completely ignore a failing disk?) from where I got the info that one has to add something like libata.force=2:disable to your kernel argument line. However, for some, reason, on one of my system's controller cards, there are 2 broken ports which are always probed, but I can't switch the card yet. In the first place, there was only one broken port and I could just use the above solution and it worked just fine. Then, when the other port died, I thought I could just add another one of these, like "... libata.force=2:disable libata.force=4:disable" which lead to the result that only port 4, and not port 2 was getting ignored, like if the second argument was kinda overriding the first one. Then I tried "... libata.force=2:disable,4:disable" which also didn't work for me.

Q: How can I make the kernel ignore multiple ata devices?

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  • Just a hopefully helpful addition: I fogot to explain what it does wrong with the second try. It seems to always disable ata4 and always leave ata2 enabled when trying it like that.
    – Lollen Jumplan
    Jan 17, 2016 at 16:19
  • Another addition with more infos: By looking at the kernel command line after reboot with journalctl, I can confirm that the system recognizes my changes, so it indeed passes to the kernel properly what I add in /etc/default/grub. I tried swapping the numbers, too, so it reads libata.force=4:disable,2:disable , but still, it does the same thing as before: leave ata2 on, turn ata4 off.
    – Lollen Jumplan
    Jan 17, 2016 at 16:33
  • Does libata.force=2:disable,4:disable turn off ata2, but leave ata4 on?
    – Justin C
    May 14, 2016 at 14:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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It's always good to refer to the kernel parameters documentation.

There we can read, for libata.force:

[LIBATA] Force configurations. The format is comma separated list of "[ID:]VAL" where ID is PORT[.DEVICE]. PORT and DEVICE are decimal numbers matching port, link or device.

Your ports are 2 and 4, and your VAL is disable. Thus you're looking for libata.force=2:disable,4:disable.

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  • Thank you, indeed I didn't have a look at these parameters (I didn't even know these docs existed) - but if you look above, that's intuitively what I wrote on the second try, and it strangely still doesn't seem to work...
    – Lollen Jumplan
    Jan 17, 2016 at 15:56
  • @TNW link is 404 now
    – Brady Dean
    Jun 5, 2022 at 19:56

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