try "/sbin/hdparm" or su with "su -"

You just dont have that command installed on your system. That is all. I would not worry about it. Maybe someone is curious about the specs for your hard disks. In that case you can get a little info by running dmesg. Just type dmesg at the command prompt. It will tell you what is detected on your system. Maybe if your hds dont have DMA then they run a little more slowly. But I really dont know as Im a beginner too :D

The "a little" bit can sometime make over 12 times
faster ... e.g., 4MB/s vs 50MB/s


Cheers,
Tink

Did what you said I already knew it was there.. I did the "man" for it.

This is what I got..

hdparm - get/set hard disk parameters - version v5.2

Usage: hdparm [options] [device] ..

Options:
-a get/set fs readahead
-A set drive read-lookahead flag (0/1)
-b get/set bus state (0 == off, 1 == on, 2 == tristate)
-B set Advanced Power Management setting (1-255)
-c get/set IDE 32-bit IO setting
-C check IDE power mode status
-d get/set using_dma flag
-D enable/disable drive defect-mgmt
-E set cd-rom drive speed
-f flush buffer cache for device on exit
-g display drive geometry
-h display terse usage information
-i display drive identification
-I detailed/current information directly from drive
-Istdin similar to -I, but wants /proc/ide/*/hd?/identify as input
-k get/set keep_settings_over_reset flag (0/1)
-K set drive keep_features_over_reset flag (0/1)
-L set drive doorlock (0/1) (removable harddisks only)
-M get/set acoustic management (0-254, 128: quiet, 254: fast) (EXPERIMENTAL)
-m get/set multiple sector count
-n get/set ignore-write-errors flag (0/1)
-p set PIO mode on IDE interface chipset (0,1,2,3,4,...)
-P set drive prefetch count
-q change next setting quietly
-Q get/set DMA tagged-queuing depth (if supported)
-r get/set readonly flag (DANGEROUS to set)
-R register an IDE interface (DANGEROUS)
-S set standby (spindown) timeout
-t perform device read timings
-T perform cache read timings
-u get/set unmaskirq flag (0/1)
-U un-register an IDE interface (DANGEROUS)
-v defaults; same as -mcudkrag for IDE drives
-V display program version and exit immediately
-w perform device reset (DANGEROUS)
-W set drive write-caching flag (0/1) (DANGEROUS)
-x tristate device for hotswap (0/1) (DANGEROUS)
-X set IDE xfer mode (DANGEROUS)
-y put IDE drive in standby mode
-Y put IDE drive to sleep
-Z disable Seagate auto-powersaving mode
-z re-read partition table

And now with parameters :}

/sbin/hdparm /dev/hda

This is going to give you all the
settings for the harddrive


Cheers,
Tink

Finnally got some Results!! Now what does it mean..?

/dev/hda:
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 = 4870/255/63, sectors = 78242976, start = 0

That's fine, DMA is turned on as such ...

With
hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
you can measure the throughput of the drive.

With -X (dangerous) you can play with the
"higher level" settings, which may gain another
(smaller) performance boost...


Cheers,
Tink

i find that you don't see /sbin in the PATH while using redhat....you'll have to issue the command : /sbin/hdparm rather than simply hdparm....
or add it to your PATH...also check out the -c and -d arguments while using hdparm, when you get it working...


wow, disregard my post....i never realized this thread was 2 pages, and i only seen the last post on the first page when he said hdparm was a command not found....
don't mind me :P