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baslinux - Re: [BL] 'hda status timeout' in BL3.40 and hdparm

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  • From: sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] 'hda status timeout' in BL3.40 and hdparm
  • Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 22:30:27 +0000 (UTC)

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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