[Fwd: Re: Failing drive? S.M.A.R.T. utilities?]

Mark Lord (mlord@pobox.com)
Wed, 21 Apr 1999 09:00:36 -0400


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Failing drive? S.M.A.R.T. utilities?
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 23:34:51 -0400
From: sphilp@ameritech.net
To: Mark Lord <mlord@pobox.com>
References: <3718C920.8360964B@ameritech.net>
<371C79E4.18F68BBD@pobox.com>

On Tue, Apr 20, 1999 at 08:58:12AM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:
> Steve Philp wrote:
> >
> > >From the sounds of it, I've got a failing drive on this machine. It
> > sounds like it momentarily loses power, but then spins right back up.
> > I've verified that the power and ribbon cables are securely inserted,
> > and the failures don't seem to be triggered by the occasional bump or
> > jostle on my desk. The system logs show:
> ..
> > kernel: ide1: reset: success
> > kernel: hdc: status error: status=0x00 { }
>
> To me, this looks like a drive that has just been
> powered down by the BIOS power management stuff.
>
> Often when that happens, the BIOS also powers down
> part of the chipset, leaving us just zeros in the
> register space -- makes it impossible to recover
> unless the driver "knows" about power management for
> that specific chipset.
>
> Just a (good) guess.

Well, it turned out to be power management, but not from the BIOS... :)

The power cable for the drive was split to go to the case fan and then
the
drive. The connector on THAT side was wiggly loose (as I discovered
when I
poked at it with my finger and listened to the drive spin down everytime
I
hit the connector). Moving that power connector to something a bit less
necessary has returned the drive to normal function.

Thanks for the reply, and sorry for the false alarm...

-- 
Steve Philp
sphilp@ameritech.net

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