Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, David Moberg wrote:

> Yes, this is more than a week old but I just saw it now.
>
> On 2006-01-27, sindi keesan wrote:
> > We have a drive (8GB) that has a DRQ problem in linux, with numerous hda
> > status timeout error messages when I try to do a whole-drive search.  I
> > posted the fix for this a couple of years ago:
> > hdparm -i /dev/hda
> > Look for some number (MMX?) in the results, in our case 16:
> > hdparm -m16 /dev/hda   put into a startup file (rc in this case).
> >
> > BL3.40 did not appear to have hdparm.  I ran it from BL2 (chrooted) and it
> > fixed the problem.  I was then able to search without these resets and I
> > found /initrd/DOS/temp/usr/sbin/hdparm, and copied hdparm to /usr/sbin.
> >
> > Please put hdparm in 3.41 in /usr/sbin.  20K.
>
> Why? Isn't the timeout just a warning message, or does it actually cause
> problems? I thought hdparm was only useful for a buggy kernel/hardware
> combination.

hdparm is needed for certain newer drives which the kernel misinterprets 
somehow, and the timeout messages fill pages and pages and make the drive 
unusable.  They occur when you do a search on a large drive (this one is 
8GB).  When I installed BL3.40 to ext2 hdparm was no longer there, it got 
left behind in DOS.  I copied it over from DOS.

> It may make more sense to rebuild busybox with the hdparm applet.
> You can skip the DMA feature - BL has DMA off by default and it is
> only useful if your hardware supports DMA and you need a faster
> disk transfer.

Two of our computers seem to have DMA problems and BL (2) tries to do 
something and finally disables DMA, so I had to disable in CMOS.
Someone said it keeps the cpu from overheating.  The cpu in one of these 
was indeed gettinbg fried.  We had to put on a better heat sink (flat on 
the bottom to match the cpu, without a heat transfer pad in the middle).

> > Or will the ext2 version be able to easily access it from /DOS/initrd/temp,
> > at startup?
>
> mount /dev/hd?? /DOS

> Are you saying that the loop version does not?

The loop version has it in /DOS/initrd, the ext2 does not have it 
anywhere.

What does it do in initrd?

> David
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org