Re: Kernel Dump when accessing second drive

[Matthew Dillon <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    The version of the ata driver we have tends to have problems
    when the drive returns errors.  That is, the error paths just
    aren't tested very well (on FreeBSD or DragonFly).  It's been
    a plague in FreeBSDland for over a decade, in fact.  The most
    recent code on FreeBSD might work a little better but for all
    intents and purposes the ATA/IDE chipset ABI has too many quirks
    to be dependable.

    The AHCI and SILI drivers are much better suited for error path
    handling.  Of course, using AHCI requires a chipset that is
    AHCI-capable.  Ultimately all new computers will have AHCI capable
    chipsets but it might be another year or two before the transition
    is complete.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@backplane.com>