Slow hard disk....

Rheibio · 10-22-2008, 09:31 AM

Hi everyone!
Since I installed Linux Slackware my HD seems dead...
I previously used windoes xp, then tried ubuntu... but i fell in love with slackware.
When I first booted form the Slackware dvd I noticed things were going very slowly. I tried to type cfdisk to set my partitions but as soon as i pressed the ENTER button i had a "fatal error". However, i used the fdisk command and everything was ok. I Installed the OS but it took FOREVER.
I tried to copy/transfer/move files but it is really slow...incredibly slow.

Since it didn't happen with other OS and I don't think the HD is damaged, I imagined it could be the kernell. The kernell is loaded as soon as I boot from dvd right?

This only happens on my notebook..

However I'm a newbie in ht linux world... please help!

onebuck · 10-22-2008, 10:17 AM

Hi,

Welcome to LQ & Slackware!

Which kernel did you select? Hardware specifications? Any error messages in your 'dmesg'?

Rheibio · 10-22-2008, 11:06 AM

The Kernel is 2.6.24.5.
Apparently there are no errors when I type dmesg, everything looks normal.
The chipset is Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller.
(Obtained from lspci -v)

rvo · 10-22-2008, 11:20 AM

Maybe you can play a little with 'hdparm' and see what happens. If DMA is off, turn it on with hdparm -d1 /dev/sda where sda is the name of your disk.

Rheibio · 10-22-2008, 11:27 AM

The output is
/dev/hdc:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
using_dma = 0 (off)

Ilgar · 10-22-2008, 11:48 AM

CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT says

Quote:

If you notice extremely long wait times when formatting partitions in the
installer, and you're installing on a Thinkpad that has a SATA drive, it's
possible that the wrong driver is being used, which disables DMA on the drive
(and could happen on other machines). A bit more detail about it is here:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Proble...stem_hard_disk
Try passing "hda=noprobe" to the kernel when booting the installer, and it
should use the correct libata driver.

T3slider · 10-22-2008, 11:51 AM

From CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT:

Code:

If you notice extremely long wait times when formatting partitions in the 
  installer, and you're installing on a Thinkpad that has a SATA drive, it's
  possible that the wrong driver is being used, which disables DMA on the drive
  (and could happen on other machines). A bit more detail about it is here:
    http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problems_with_SATA_and_Linux#No_DMA_on_system_hard_disk
  Try passing "hda=noprobe" to the kernel when booting the installer, and it
  should use the correct libata driver.

Your SATA hard drive is being detected as an IDE hard drive (/dev/hdc) instead of an SATA one (/dev/sd*). You could either reinstall Slackware passing the hda=noprobe parameter both to the kernel when booting off the installer CD/DVD AND as a kernel option for LILO (ie in liloconfig, it asks if you want to pass any extra kernel parameters).

Alternatively, if you don't want to reinstall, you should edit /etc/fstab and change the /dev/hdc lines to /dev/sda (or sdb etc. -- if it is the first and only SATA device and you have no USB devices plugges in, it should be detected as sda). Then you would also have to edit /etc/lilo.conf and add the line

Code:

append="hda=noprobe"

There may already be an append= line -- you could just add the hda=noprobe option to it if it's there. I'm not at my Slackware PC right now, so I can't verify that all information is correct, but I believe it is.

Rheibio · 10-22-2008, 12:05 PM

Ok thanks! but... if i type hda=noprobe when i boot from the slackware dvd i get the following error:
could not find kernel image hda=noprobe
same for hdc=noprobe

bgeddy · 10-22-2008, 12:14 PM

You need to supply the kernel name first so type :

Code:

hugesmp.s hda=noprobe

When booting the install DVD.

Rheibio · 10-22-2008, 12:33 PM

Wow, new problem. When i boot with the hda=noprobe parameter (someon suggested hda=noprobe hdc=noprobe) it seems that my partitions don't exist anymore. cfdisk gives me a fatal errore while fdisk -l doesn't list any partitions.
fdisk /dev/hda (same thing with hdc and sda) returns me an error and i can't make any operation.
Any suggestions?

Ilgar · 10-22-2008, 12:59 PM

It should be /dev/sda (or /dev/sdc) now... Try with those.

Edit: Also, one of hda=noprobe and hdc=noprobe should be enough.

bgeddy · 10-22-2008, 01:06 PM

Well after booting with the noprobe argument you could try typing

dmesg | grep [sh]d

and looking for lines referring to your hard disk - something with sda or maybe sdc in them. That should show you what your hard disk is being detected as. You could then try applying that to cfdisk i.e. cfdisk /dev/sdc or something. What is the make and model of your machine ? It may be that your hard disk is not using the appropriate driver or something and possibly this problem has been found before.

Rheibio · 10-22-2008, 01:32 PM

Thank you Sooooooooooooooooo much for the help you're giving. However it's an Acer Travelmate 4150.

secarr · 10-22-2008, 01:40 PM

The problem boils down to the kernel is using the IDE driver to communicate with your hard drives, which is why it labels them hda, hdb, etc.

There is a newer driver called libata which supports SATA disks, this is the driver you want to be using. libata however labels disks sda, sdb, sdc, etc.

By giving the boot directive hda=noprobe and hdc=noprobe you're telling the kernel not to probe your hard drives using the IDE driver.

Rheibio · 10-22-2008, 01:45 PM

dmesg | grep [sh]d
hda: ide_wait_not_busy() skipped
hdc: ide_wait_not_busy() skipped
hdd: Slimtype DVDRW SOSW-833S, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: ATAPI &£X DVD-Rom DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache
Driver "sd" needs updating - please use bus_type methods

What does this mean?