Hello,

I have a machine which for no particular reason has a zip drive in it. I've never used this drive, I don't even have any zip disks. The problem I'm getting is that the syslog is constantly filling up with data. I am trying to figure out how to get these messages to stop.. other than putting a zip disk in the drive or just yanking it. I guess it's not big deal, as it's a $25 computer for a 3 year old.. and as long as he can get to disney, jetix, and other websites, and gcompris is working, he doesn't care if it has a zip drive. :P But it's bugging the crap out of me. Any help would be appreciated.

Here is some system info.

slackware 11.0 , kernel 2.4.33.2

root@bromine:/etc/rc.d# cat /etc/fstab
/dev/hda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,owner,ro 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
root@bromine:/etc/rc.d# cat /etc/mtab
/dev/hda2 / ext3 rw 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,devgid=10,devmode=0666 0 0


cat /var/log/dmesg
Linux version 2.4.33.3 (root@tree) (gcc version 3.4.6) #1 Fri Sep 1 01:48:52 CDT
2006
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 00000000000a0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000fff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000fff0000 - 000000000fff3000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 000000000fff3000 - 0000000010000000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
255MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 65520
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 61424 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: auto BOOT_IMAGE=Linux ro root=302
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 933.373 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 1861.22 BogoMIPS
Memory: 255700k/262080k available (1926k kernel code, 5996k reserved, 577k data,
124k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 256K
CPU: After generic, caps: 0383f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0383f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel Pentium III (Coppermine) stepping 06
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb410, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Via IRQ fixup
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/0686] at 00:07.0
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
pty: 512 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_I
RQ SERIAL_PCI enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10f
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 7777K size 1024 blocksize
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:07.1
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: VIA vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci00:07.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd000-0xd007, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd008-0xd00f, BIOS settings: hdcMA, hddMA
hda: ST330621A, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IOMEGA ZIP 100 ATAPI Floppy, ATAPI FLOPPY drive
hdc: _NEC NR-7500A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: FX4830T, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 58633344 sectors (30020 MB) w/512KiB Cache, CHS=3649/255/63, UDMA(100)
hdc: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hdc: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, DMA
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
hdd: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hdd: ATAPI 48X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache, UDMA(33)
hdb: attached ide-floppy driver.
hdb: No disk in drive
hdb: 98304kB, 96/64/32 CHS, 4096 kBps, 512 sector size, 2941 rpm
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
libata version 1.20 loaded.
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
md: linear personality registered as nr 1
md: raid0 personality registered as nr 2
md: raid1 personality registered as nr 3
md: raid5 personality registered as nr 4
raid5: measuring checksumming speed
8regs : 1544.400 MB/sec
32regs : 854.400 MB/sec
pIII_sse : 1913.200 MB/sec
pII_mmx : 2093.600 MB/sec
p5_mmx : 2206.400 MB/sec
raid5: using function: pIII_sse (1913.200 MB/sec)
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
LVM version 1.0.8(17/11/2003)
Initializing Cryptographic API
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 124k freed
Adding Swap: 995988k swap-space (priority -1)
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,2), internal journal
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 203M
agpgart: Detected Via Apollo Pro chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xd0000000
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices

Here is what it's filling the logs with:

Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: hdb: No disk in drive
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: ide-floppy: hdb: I/O error, pc = 1e, key = 2, asc = 3a, ascq = 0
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: ide-floppy: hdb: I/O error, pc = 0, key = 2, asc = 3a, ascq = 0
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: ide-floppy: hdb: I/O error, pc = 1b, key = 2, asc = 3a, ascq = 0
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: hdb: No disk in drive
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: ide-floppy: hdb: I/O error, pc = 1e, key = 2, asc = 3a, ascq = 0
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: ide-floppy: hdb: I/O error, pc = 0, key = 2, asc = 3a, ascq = 0
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: ide-floppy: hdb: I/O error, pc = 1b, key = 2, asc = 3a, ascq = 0
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: hdb: No disk in drive
Mar 28 02:44:55 bromine kernel: ide-floppy: hdb: I/O error, pc = 1e, key = 2, asc = 3a, ascq = 0

Oh, and the machine is also using lilo.. here's the conf.

root@bromine:/etc/rc.d# grep -v ^# /etc/lilo.conf
boot = /dev/hda2
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 2
change-rules
reset
vga = normal
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda2
label = Linux
read-only

Shutdown, open the machine and unplug the ribbon cable and power from the drive, reboot.

Even better... edit /etc/syslog.conf to eliminate such messages, restart syslog.

I don't know if it's better; the system will still be continuously polling an unused piece of "equipment" (in polite terms).

I doubt the load would cause issues on his machine. But then again, why have hardware attached to a machine if you're never going to use it..