On Wednesday 20 October 2004 07:17, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote:
Hi Debian!
I have a problem and would like suggestions on how to isolate what is wrong.
1. I am running a Abit KT7A with 2 Maxtor HDD's 80GB + 40GB Model=Maxtor 6Y080P0, FwRev=YAR41BW0, SerialNo=Y2FAZ3HE hda Model=Maxtor 6E040L0, FwRev=NAR61590, SerialNo=E1FS8RWE hdb and 3 256MB 168 pin memory cards.
So how long did you have this arrangement working fine? That is, how long did you have two drives and 3 DIMMs working with no problems?
I swapped a 20GB drive for an 80GB one last august. That system is now 3 years old.
2. Last summer I bought a new power supply that has double ballbearings, the original one don't. I put it in and after 20 minutes one disk goes "bad". He can't access it. When you boot, you see garbage in the bios identification field. I put the old powersupply in and the problem goes away. I think the new powersupply is bad. I tried this twice and the results are the same.
Is the new power supply rated to handle the load? If not, you'll get all sorts of strange problems.
Yes. It is rated 300W, which the original one, now 3 years old has.
You indicate that you replaced the power supply with the old one. Are all the events mentioned below with the old power supply? I am answering as if yes, but if these happened using the new one, that would be my first guess.
Yes. With the old power supply. After 20 minutes or so with the new power supply. One of the disks goes. Stupid me, I cannot remember if it is the same one as does now.
3. A few days ago, I suddenly have trouble copying an iso file from one partition on hda to another: it takes forever, what normally takes 10 seconds or so, now takes 10 minutes.
Sounds like DMA was turned off. Are you running smartmontools? If so, what does it say?
Right. After this morning that appears so. He turns off DMA and then things take for ever.
4. Yesterday I tried the new Sarge installer and it hangs in "Starting up the partitioner" booting with linux26. I file bug #277177. I try installing a 2.4.27 kernel and that works but on booting it he turns off DMA on the disks, says it has errors.
What are the specific error messages?
debian kernel: EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } debian kernel: ide0: reset: success debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } debian kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } debian kernel: ide0: reset: success
5. I leave the system powered down overnight, boot a Sarge partition on hda and now the system can't access hdb. I reboot and the bios id of the hdb disk is garbage. But just a second before I could boot 2.6.7 on a partition on that disk.
I want to identify the problem, preferably without buying new hardware at first. I now think it is the mobo, but how do I know?
Suggestions?
Hugo.
You might also see what happens if you specify the hard drive geometry in the BIOS setup, rather than having autodetect. If the BIOS is currently not autodetecting the drives, then I would definitely suspect the motherboard, unless you're cutting the power and the mobo battery is dead.
One easy thing to check, though, is your power supply connections. Make sure none of them are loose.
I have made double sure of my power connections and BIOS finds hda just fine.
So since posting I turned off hdb. Took out references to it from lilo and fstab. Hda runs fine.
Before that I used hdparm -I /dev/hdb and got garbage on the model number, the first line of output. That same garbage is what I see on boot. I tried hdparm -w /dev/hdb but that did not change it.
I would be willing to say that hdb went bad. But I was running on it day before yesterday and yesterday until I switched to hda with a backup CD of the hdb Sarge partition I was running.
But then maybe disks can go bad on and off...
Hugo.
Hope that helps, Justin Guerin
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
