Hi,

I have a USB hard disk (WD My Book Essential) connected via a PCI-Usb hub on my computer. Several times the HD seems to stop working and I get the following message in /var/log/messages:

Apr 12 21:16:56 Arachni kernel: usb 1-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Apr 12 21:20:49 Arachni kernel: usb 1-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Apr 12 21:22:03 Arachni kernel: usb 1-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Apr 12 21:23:30 Arachni kernel: usb 1-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Apr 12 21:31:21 Arachni kernel: usb 1-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Apr 12 21:40:18 Arachni kernel: usb 1-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2

could someone help me solve the issue?

I have installed Slackware 11 with 2.6.17.13 kernel.

Thanks in advance!

Could be many things. Buggy (old) driver in the kernel; cable
or power issues, ... give us more details? E.g. mobo details, which
kernel version you're using, where the drive pulls its power from,
.... it even could be that the office has wonky power lines for
all I know.


Cheers,
Tink

Hi Tinkster,

My box is based on the (very) old SIS K7S5A motherboard with the latest bios available for this m/b installed. The system's CPU is a Duron 800MHz and the box has 1262MB of RAM. I have installed Slackware 11 with the 2.6.17.13 kernel (from /extra).

The m/b does not support USB2.0, therefore, I've installed a USB2.0 PCI card. I don't remember the exact model of the card (I have to open the box to find it out, unless there is another way (?)), but I think it is based on VIA-chipset. In any case when I bought the card I remember it stated on the box that it was linux compatible.

The external disk is a Western Digital essential 250GB. Its power supply is external and it is connected on the machine through the PCI card I mentioned earlier. I am certain that there is no problem with the power supply, or with the USB cables. So there has to be something else.

I've noticed that if I set max_sectors to 64:

echo 64 >/sys/block/sda/device/max_sectors

the disk seems to work without those nasty messages in /var/log/messages. But is this the correct thing to do, or there is a better solution?

BTW, do I have a performance penalty by changing this setting from 240 to 64, or the performance loss is negligible for everyday use?

Thank you

GS

Read this it might help you because I had
a problem like that with my usb stick on a laptop.

http://www.slackwarehelp.org/about15...7d89a3c85d6d31

I have similar problem with my USB HD and my laptop.. However the slackwarehelp.org page no longer works..