Floppy-related hangs in 2.1.94-99

David Huggins-Daines (s1204672@aix2.uottawa.ca)
Fri, 1 May 1998 14:52:44 -0400 (EDT)


Hi! I've posted something about this to comp.os.linux.development.system
but got no response - I'm wondering if anyone here might know more about
it.

The problem is that writing floppies with dd causes both of my machines to
lock up solid when running any kernel >= 2.1.94, while kernels <= 2.1.91
and 2.0.33 don't do this. (2.1.92 is just generally unstable, while
2.1.93 doesn't boot, so I haven't tried it on them). The floppy driver
is loaded as a module on all these kernels.

Both boxes are uniprocessor SCSI-based machines, using the ncr53c8xx
driver. I've heard a bit about floppy-related hangs on SMP machines, but
nothing about uniprocessors. The dd version is GNU fileutils 3.16.
Unfortunately, when it locks up, it doesn't leave any useful information
in the logs - it just hangs, without responding to the SysRq key or
anything.

I'm not a kernel hacker so I'm not sure how to go about diagnosing the
problem. Regardless, it's not life-threatening - I just thought I'd let
y'all know it exists.

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