Re: Hard disk errors with 2.0.x kernels

Matt Hawkins (matt@blitzen.canberra.edu.au)
Fri, 2 Aug 1996 21:32:59 +1000 (EST)


On Mon, 29 Jul 1996, Gerry Jensen wrote:

> I'm using kernel 2.0.7 and I've got the following error:
>
> hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=2342359,
> sector=2342296
>
> The drive is a 1.5 gig Maxtor and the motherboard has the Intel Triton
> chipset.
>
> Previously, I got a same or similar error along with a complete crash of
> the system. We've been running Linux for a couple years without ever
> having this problem. So, I figure either my hard drive is going bad, or
> there is some bug with the latest kernels. Have other people been seeing
> this error with 2.0.x kernels? Any opinions on which is the problem are
> appreciated.

I got the same errors something shocking on my old 850Mb Maxtor drive.
This has been with every kernel I've used from 1.3.4 and up.
What I've put my problem down to was a rather bad mental problem when I
had this sudden urge to install Lo$eDough$95 on this drive. I had to run
the Disk Mungler program that came with the maxtor drive so the dodgy old
OS could read the >512 Mb drive, which could have been half the problem.
Linux, naturally, had no problem at all when the drive worked, but
occasionally the power to the drive would fail, or something else would
happen and it couldn't access the drive, hence the kernel would give the
aforementioned errors.
I've reformatted the same drive 3 times after I recovered from my mental
block (all 6 hours of it;) (amazingly enough, the M$ product thought it
still existed on my drive after two full formats from both linux and dos
6.22 - three killed it though;) and I've done it once again during a
rather bad system crash (caused by the dodgy drive) so where I am now is
that 4 (or 8, I guess you could say) total reformats of the drive later
and I'm not getting those errors frequently any more (they still crop up
every month or so, though).
I've learnt from this experience that'd next time I buy a hard drive, I'll
go for a Quantum. I also learnt that 850Mb of free disk space is better
spent on 850Mb ext2 than 850Mb vfat.

-- Matt

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