hdparm oops...can't boot now :(

Axion · 03-29-2004, 08:27 AM

i was following a guide enabling some hdparm parameters i probably should have, and now I cannot boot...tons of errors while loading shared libraries for agetty. Then it stops saying trying to respawn to fast, pausing for 5 minutes...I never waited the 5 minutes, but I have a feeling my drive is totally screwed up now...I have a lot of important data that I must recover if a reinstall is necessary. Please any advice would be helpful...I'm not sure what to do or where to begin. Thanks.

qwijibow · 03-29-2004, 09:11 AM

first of all, back up your data...

do you have a rescue disk ?
if not there should be a linux rescue disk image on your install cd's
or optionally, download a rescue disk image.

OR, somthing like a live linux cd such as KNOPPIX or Damn-Small-Linux (DSL) would be perfect !

boot your live distro or rescue floppy and copy all your vital data to some other medium..... floppies or a spare hard disk, or if u have KNOPPIX or somthing with cd-writing software you can backup onto CD.

maybe the best thing to do would be to just backup your entire home directory.

anyway, once thats done, you can attempt to fix the damage you caused without worry.

please post exactly all the changes you made to the system that caused this boot error.

(optionally, just re-install, somtimes its faster to re-install)

Axion · 03-29-2004, 09:31 AM

Thanks for the reply. I copied the entire disk with dd to another drive of the smae size. I am booted in SystemRestoreCd (gentoo-based live cd) right now positng this. I am positive this is hdparm's doing, as I rebooted directly before and after the hdparm changes. The hdparm command I used was:

/usr/sbin/hdparm -d1 -A1 -m16 -u1 -a64 -c1 -X69 /dev/hda

qwijibow · 03-29-2004, 03:31 PM

Ahhhh....

SO. you are saying that you entered that command into a shell prompt ?

Any changes you make to hdparm are reset to default on re-boot.

if you entered that command into a bootup config file, like anything in /etc/rc.d/rc.local then simply remove the line and drive will return to stay default dureing boot.

HOWEVER... if you didnt add that line to a bootup config script, then a reboot would have re-set the disk to defaults, and STILL caused a crash.

i havent looked up exactly what you have done, but it seems to me, that you made a bad change to hdparm, which damaged some files.

i think you need to re-install

ask for a second opinion, im no guru.

320mb · 03-29-2004, 03:59 PM

Code:

       -A     Disable/enable the IDE drive’s read-lookahead  feature  (usually
	      ON by default).

why did you use this flag?? and this was not a good idea either......

Code:

-u     Get/set  interrupt-unmask	 flag  for  the drive.	A setting of 1
	      permits the driver to unmask other interrupts during  processing
	      of  a disk interrupt, which greatly improves Linux’s responsive-
	      ness and eliminates "serial port overrun" errors.	 Use this fea-
	      ture  with  caution:  some  drive/controller combinations do not
	      tolerate the increased I/O latencies possible when this  feature
	      is enabled, resulting in massive filesystem corruption.  In par-
	      ticular, CMD-640B and RZ1000 (E)IDE interfaces can be unreliable
	      (due  to	a  hardware flaw) when this option is used with kernel
	      versions earlier than 2.0.13.  Disabling the IDE	prefetch  fea-
	      ture  of these interfaces (usually a BIOS/CMOS setting) provides
	      a safe fix for the problem for use with earlier kernels.

this is from hdparm man page

Axion · 03-29-2004, 06:50 PM

thanks for the help...ya i decided to start over...figured its time to use my own kernel with LFS anyway.