[UPDATED 2010-03-25] JMicronATA.kext Not Needed

[MacMan]

I have found that on my MB (P55-UD5) the JMicronATA.kext is not needed to enable the eSATA or GSATA ports in AHCI or RAID mode. I thought it might be to enable the GSATA IDE, but I've had no luck getting that port working (which I don't need anyway). With or without it, my eSATA and all of my GSATA ports work and always show as "Unknown AHCI Standard Controller" in System Profiler.

To correct this I created a kext (JMicronSATA.kext, which I've attached) that injects based on the JMircron chip used, the JMicron chip name in System Profiler. For some reason my MB uses JMB363's for the eSata and GSATA ports. So on my Hack Pro they all show up as "JMicron JMB363 AHCI". In my kext I have entries for the JMB360, JMB361, JMB362, JMB363 and JMB366 configured as AHCI or RAID.

The only downside with my kext is that all of the JMicron connected drives show as external drives on the Mac desktop. I haven't been able to figure out a way to have the kext probe the PCIE bus to determine which chips are on what bus so I can mark the eSATA ports as external and the other JMB36x ports internal. The only solution I found so far for this behavior is to use IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext to mark all JMB36x ports as internal.

I would appreciate if I could get as many people as possible to test this on as many MB's that have JMircon SATA ports and let me know how it works or any feedback.

Thanks.

Update 2010-03-25:

There are new versions of the kext. Details and downloads are available at http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/03/jmicron-sata-support.html

 

[thelostswede]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

If I could hand out gold stars, you'd get five

I have the same issue without this kext with the drives attached to the Gigabyte GSATA controller (don't have any eSATA drives), but at least it allows you to hot swap them easily

By the by, could you add the 368 as well? As it's used by some boards. Don't bother if it's too much of a hassle though, as I've only noticed it on a couple of board from Asus so far.

 

[tonymacx86]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

If I could hand out gold stars, you'd get five

 

[MacMan]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

By the by, could you add the 368 as well? As it's used by some boards. Don't bother if it's too much of a hassle though, as I've only noticed it on a couple of board from Asus so far.

Here is version 0.2 with JMB368 support added in.

Enjoy.

 

[thelostswede]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

Hahaha, that was quick. I guess you won't have to update it for a while now.

Next challenge, do one for the Marvell 6Gbps SATA controllers on the A-series Gigabyte boards (just kidding)

 

[thelostswede]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

Tell you what it did though, it upped the speed from 1.5Gbps to 3Gbps, so whatever you did with that kext sure made OS X love the JMicron controller a lot more

 

[thelostswede]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

Did you compare with the IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext? As it's meant to solve the orange icon issue?

 

[MacMan]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

Did you compare with the IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext? As it's meant to solve the orange icon issue?

I just looked at it and I could integrate it to make all JMicron connected disks look like an internal disk by merging the two kexts.

I didn't originally do this as in my case I don't use the internal ports and only use the eSATA ports.

Until I can figure out how to discover which PCIE bus each chip is on, I can create two versions. One that has them integrated and create an eSATA only version called JMicron_eSATA.kext or JMicroneSATA.kext.

What would people like?

Let me know.

 

[MacMan]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

Next challenge, do one for the Marvell 6Gbps SATA controllers on the A-series Gigabyte boards (just kidding)

It shouldn't be too hard.

All I need is someone to get me information from a A-series Gigabyte board and then I can hack something together for them to try.

Any volunteers who have access to a A-series Gigabyte board and IORegistryExplorer or DPCIManager?

Let me know and I can tell you what I need.

 

[IceBear]

Re: JMicronATA.kext Not Needed for eSATA or GSATA on Gigabyte

I'll give it a shot. Let me know what you need. I have a P55A and IORegistryExplorer.

IB