Hi

I have been using Mepis 6.0 for sometime now after many years using Suse. I switched as I was very disappointed with Suse 10.0 and 10.1. I am very pleased with the distro and he Apt system is far superior to the RPM system.

Recently my system did an automatic file system check on boot up and since then I find that it now hangs for a while on boot up. Looking at dmesg I found a problem relating to the DMA of the HDB drive. Here is an exstract from dmesg. For clarification I have two drives with Mepis 6.0 on the second drive (hdb)

ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 160086528 sectors (81964 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(133)
hda: cache flushes supported
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 < hda5 hda6 > hda4
hdb: max request size: 128KiB
hdb: 150136560 sectors (76869 MB) w/1916KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)
hdb: cache flushes not supported
hdb:hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hda: DMA disabled
ide0: reset: success

It appears to be associated with direct memory access(DMA) as when this is disabled it then boots. I never had this problem before, in fact I was pleased at how fast it booted compared to Suse 10.1. According to my information some systemsmay allow you to change the DMA setting either by software or jumpers, but then what do I change them to?.

Any advise would be most welcome

Grabro

Maybe check the setting in the BIOS-that DMA is turned on

If of help here is my dmsg of same area
[ 25.193142] hda: max request size: 128KiB
[ 25.194153] hda: 20005650 sectors (10242 MB) w/512KiB Cache, CHS=19846/16/63, UDMA(66)
[ 25.194164] hda: cache flushes not supported
[ 25.194291] hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4
[ 25.244392] hdb: max request size: 1024KiB
[ 25.251381] hdb: 156368016 sectors (80060 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, UDMA(100)
[ 25.251595] hdb: cache flushes supported
[ 25.251699] hdb: hdb1 hdb2 < hdb5 >

Usually a sign of a bad disk or format, usually. If possible try to reformat it.

Hi

Here's the latest saga. I took the view that the disk was about to fail so I bought another (80GB Seagate Barracuda) I have also taken the opportunity to upgrade the memory to 1.5Gb.I did not think there would be a problem but here is an extract of "dmesg"

17179570.832000] SIS5513: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:02.5
[17179570.832000] SIS5513: chipset revision 0
[17179570.832000] SIS5513: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
[17179570.832000] SIS5513: SiS 962/963 MuTIOL IDE UDMA133 controller
[17179570.832000] ide0: BM-DMA at 0xff00-0xff07, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbMA
[17179570.832000] ide1: BM-DMA at 0xff08-0xff0f, BIOS settings: hdcMA, hddMA
[17179570.832000] Probing IDE interface ide0...
[17179571.120000] hda: Maxtor 6Y080L0, ATA DISK drive
[17179571.400000] hdb: ST380011A, ATA DISK drive
[17179571.456000] ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
[17179573.056000] hdb: max request size: 1024KiB
[17179573.056000] hdb: Host Protected Area detected.
[17179573.056000] current capacity is 66055248 sectors (33820 MB)
[17179573.056000] native capacity is 156301488 sectors (80026 MB)
[17179573.056000] hdb: Host Protected Area disabled.
[17179573.056000] hdb: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, UDMA(100)
[17179573.056000] hdb: cache flushes supported
[17179573.056000] hdb: hdb1
[17179602.340000] hdb: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
[17179602.364000] hdb: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
[17179602.376000] ide: failed opcode was: 0xef
[17179603.280000] hdb: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
[17179603.292000] hdb: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
[17179603.304000] ide: failed opcode was: 0xef

I don't know what "Host Protected Area" is but I am assuming it's because most of the disk was unpartitioned. I have since created a partition hdb2.

The strange thing is that hdb1 is a linux swap area which IS CURRENTLY MOUNTED and is BEING USED as a swap. My current instalation; Mepis 6; saw two swap areas hda2 and hdb2 and activate them.

I have been adviced it may be the cable but why only the slave drive? The other alternative is the ide on the M/B but it appears to read it OK.

Any Clues will be helpful.

grabro

Hi !

You can get rid of those messages by running fsck as root on a not mounted filesystem. The best way to do this would be from a LiveCD or an installation CD/DVD in rescue mode.

Where hd?? is your partition to be checked, like hda1 hda2 hdb1 etc.

This has probably been caused by an unclean shutdown of the system. In this case there is not much to worry about. If this is not the case, this will fix some badly written blocks on the disk, however,
will not eradicate the root cause of the problem, which might be:

-an obsolete driver
-ACPI/LAPIC problem
-physical disk error
-many other things I have no clue about

I'm not much of an expert when it comes to low-level I/O ops.

Oozie

Thanks for your advice. In fact I had found a very detailed article on the web "Captains Universe"
which explains that the error shown on my disk is a minor cliche. The other drive which I replaced was almost terminal The error BadCRC is a sign of a terminal disc.

I will run fsck on the disk and try to install Redhat 6. on it as I wish to set it up as a server, initially to design a website and then to go live on the web.

Cheers again

grabro