DOes anyone know about a utility in Linux, by which we can test the IDE interface. Basically, I am running into some read/write problems and I would like to make sure that if my hardware IDE interface is working fine or not.

Can anyone point me out to some utility which could test the IDE interface?

Thanks

Are you wanting to test the actual IDE interphase or the disk that's on it? If it's the disk that's on it, you can often find some sort of "tuneXfs" utility that's often with whatever made the filesystem (probably in with your distribution). Also included is a batch program--fsck. Run this on an unmounted disk (has to be unmounted, to check the root folder (everything), you need a LiveCD Linux of some sort though. (Knoppix is probably the most famous of these, but SuSE and Slackware have their own, Tom's Root-Boot is another good one--TOMSRTBT).

Yes, I would like to test the actual IDE interface and not the Disk.

Does any one know of such kind of utility?

Thanks for looking into this matter.

Who made the interphase device (the mobo)? Maybe you can check their site and find something. Other than that, your best bet would probably be a third-party non-OS utility that will boot your computer itself and test from there. ...or you may accidentally be able to do it from your BIOS (some actually can do that, especially the IBM Thinkpads! ...but don't hold your breath looking there.). Hard Drive manufacturers may also be a good source, but match the utility with whoever made your drive. FreshMeat or Google may be your biggest allies for this one. ...maybe Tucows can work their way in as well, but their search tool is pretty picky.