A Western Digital IDE drive that I've connected to my Debian box seems to be working perfectly, but keeps cluttering my logs with the following error message when its mounted:

It happens every few minutes, regardless of disk activity.

Is this a sign of impending doom for the data on my drive?

I've been using the drive for years on another (Mac OS) machine without problems, and I've never had any actual performance or reliability problems during the short time that I've been using it in Debian. It is, however, an OEM device(I yanked it from my retired Macintosh G3 tower) with freaky custom Apple firmware. Most notibly, this means that the jumper configuration table defies WD's specs.

-Andrew

hmm, it could be invalid options for the drive, I have seen it before. try hdparm /dev/hdX
and alsa hdparm -i /dev/hdX
post the output
I might then be able to send you a few options to try, also in your rc.local boot script at the very end type dmesg > /root/dmout.txt
open that file then copy and paste anything to do with ide and the drive, anything you think is important, also post the output of lspci I want to look up stuff on the drive AND controller
also, is this on an i386 or a mac?

Wow, lots of information; here goes...

Output of hdparm /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit)
unmaskirq = 0 (off)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 8912/15/63, sectors = 8421840, start = 0

Output of hdparm -i /dev/hde

Model=WDC AC24300L, FwRev=08.09L08, SerialNo=WD-WM4110324264
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=8912/15/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=22
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=256kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=8912/15/63, CurSects=8421840, LBA=yes, LBAsects=8421840
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:160,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version: 1 2 3 4

The only segment from the bootup dmesg that pertains to ide. The partition map as reported here seems to be correct:

ata_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hdf: 5008752 sectors (2564 MB) w/75KiB Cache, CHS=4969/16/63, DMA
hdg: attached ide-disk driver.
hdg: host protected area => 1
hdg: 78177792 sectors (40027 MB) w/418KiB Cache, CHS=77557/16/63, UDMA(33)
hdc: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hdc: ATAPI 32X DVD-ROM drive, 256kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 >
hdb: hdb1 hdb2 hdb3
hde: hde1
hdf: hdf1
hdg: hdg1

The output of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 [IGD4-1P] System Controller (rev 12)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 [IGD4-1P] AGP Bridge
00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 40)
00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586/B/686A/B PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 16)
00:07.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 16)
00:07.4 SMBus: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 40)
00:09.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB12LV26 IEEE-1394 Controller (Link)
00:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 02)
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:0c.0 Unknown mass storage controller: CMD Technology Inc PCI0680 (rev 02) <-- disk in question is connected here
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R100 QD [Radeon 7200]

Finally, I'm running on a 686, using kernel 2.4.21.

-Andrew

can you give me a couple lines above this in dmesg:
ata_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }

also do a dmesg | grep hde
and then also select lines that are relevent to what it gives you.

aside from that line I do not see anything useful.

also what is: gilliam kernel?

hmm, the problem is not with the drive perameters.

it seems that the drive is trying to report it's status but the hex signal it sends (0x58) is not recognised, the signal may be corrupt eather as a fluke in the drive, or perhapse the cable is bad/has a glitch in it, or worst case you are right and the drive is dying..

something to try:
compile a custom kernel and enable all the new and experimental ide options with exception of controllers that you don't have.

From /var/log/messages:

Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam syslogd 1.4.1#10: restart.
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: klogd 1.4.1#10, log source = /proc/kmsg started.
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: Cannot find map file.
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: Loaded 175 symbols from 9 modules.
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: ata_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: hdf: 5008752 sectors (2564 MB) w/75KiB Cache, CHS=4969/16/63, DMA
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: hdg: attached ide-disk driver.
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: hdg: host protected area => 1
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: hdg: 78177792 sectors (40027 MB) w/418KiB Cache, CHS=77557/16/63, UDMA(33)
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: hdc: attached ide-cdrom driver.
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: hdc: ATAPI 32X DVD-ROM drive, 256kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Aug 19 00:07:08 gilliam kernel: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12


Output of dmesg | grep hde:
gilliam:~# dmesg | grep hde
hde: hde1
hde: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
hde: drive not ready for command
hde: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
hde: drive not ready for command


hde was not mentioned in dmout.txt, aside from the partition check as shown above.

Gilliam is my machine's name Looks like I left on the prefix for the error, as it appeared in the console.

I've got plenty of cableing laying around; I'll swap it out later and see what happens. I'll see about the kernel, too.

Thanks for the help so far

-Andrew

just made a connection gilliam... are you an outlaw star fan? also it looks liek it is trying to access the drive when it is busy, all that would mean is you have an old drive with a new kernel :-P maybe make hde into hda (I know I know, this is for testing) then in the kernel ide config enable ide old mode (something similar) for primary device, see if the old mode fixes the problem, this can entail quite a bit of effort though

Hehe...yeah, I liked Outlaw Star. It happened to be airing on Toonami when I put this machine together, and it seemed like a good fit...

I believe I know which kernel option you're referring to...I'll give that a try when I get a chance to shut everything down.

-Andrew

The problem seems to be solved. I removed the slave drive that was shareing the bus with the drive in question, and the errors havn't come back up. There is this one strange tidbit in the dmesg buffer at boot time:

hde: attached ide-disk driver.
hde: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hde: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hde: host protected area => 1
hde: 8421840 sectors (4312 MB) w/256KiB Cache, CHS=8912/15/63, UDMA(33)
hdg: attached ide-disk driver.
hdg: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdg: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hdg: 5008752 sectors (2564 MB) w/75KiB Cache, CHS=4969/16/63, DMA


hde is the drive that was being funny before, on his own bus now. hdg used to be hdf(hde's slave) before I moved it, though it never had trouble before.

That, however, seems to be the entirety of it; neither drive has made a peep on the console since boot, even after a vigorous workout, so I'm content that nothing is going to explode anytime soon

Thanks for the help.

-Andrew

sounds like your ide controller is eather using a buggy driver (try a newer kernel, let me know if you want a 2.6.0 tutorial it kicks @$$) that or the controller is defective/dying. if 2 drives are doing it then the controller is LIKELY to blame.

I've been wanting to try the new kernel sometime; I hear it has non-dysfunctional ieee1394 support. I've been a little reluctant to try an unstable kernel though.
Anyway, it would not suprise me if it's just a buggy controller, since it was the cheapest one I could find at the time.

-Andrew

2.6.0-test3 gives me no trouble at all. it did at first because i was unfamiliar with it, definetly d-load the new module stuff, you need to go the the kernel.org ftp site, under kenel go to people and rusty, somewhere in there is module-init-tools, alsa make a backup copy of all your old modtools (modprobe rmmod insmod lsmod, etc ad the same name with .old at the end (things need this)