From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jim Nelson Subject: Re: can't read my new hard drive Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 07:28:26 -0500 Message-ID: <41CEAE6A.4010401@verizon.net> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20041225213459.0217a3c8@celine> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20041225213459.0217a3c8@celine> Sender: linux-newbie-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: Ray Olszewski Cc: linux-newbie@vger.kernel.org Ray Olszewski wrote: > At 09:28 PM 1/2/1999 -0500, rob.rice wrote: > >> I just got a new WD2500JBRTL hard drive I can format it reiser >> filesystem I >> can write to it I can ls it BUT when ever I try to read from >> (cp,du,mv,tar) >> it my computer locks up it also locks up when I try to run any reiser >> file >> system util on it right now I'm waiting to hear from award's bios >> update site >> for an update for my bios because my bios can't see that this hard >> drive is >> larger than 137 GB BUT my kernel can see this hard drive as a 250GB hard >> drive is there some hdparm setting I can use to fix this or some >> module I can >> load or is this hard drive to large to be used in one partion with reiser >> filesystem or is there a kernel patch I need to use in order to >> accesses this >> drive >> >> boycott western digitall for not support linux (and tell them so I >> have told >> them this is the last hard drive I will buy form them until they support >> linux) > > > Calm down, Rob. Based on what you have reported, it is way too early to > call for a boycott, or even to complain at all to WD. > > The 137 GB problem you see is a BIOS problem. Maybe the latest BIOSes > get around it (I don't own anything new enough to test this), but most > older ones don't. Linux can see the full 250 GB because it doesn't use > the BIOS values to get drive capacity information. Last I knew, Windows > (at least through Win2K) had a worse time with these super-big drives > than Linux does, because it does rely on the BIOS settings ... I have a > couple of unused auxiliary IDE controllers that Maxtor packaged with its > largest drives for awhile to let Windows users get around the 137 GB limit. > I had the exact same problem with a 160 GB WD drive I got from Sam's Club - except the BIOS on my media server had the 33 GB limit. BTW, Western Digital still ships ATA/100 cards with some of their drives (it takes a little shopping) - they come with Promise IDE controllers. From dmesg: ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx PIIX4: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:07.1 PIIX4: chipset revision 1 PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio Probing IDE interface ide0... hda: ST340810A, ATA DISK drive Using cfq io scheduler ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 Probing IDE interface ide1... hdc: CD-RW IDE5224, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 PDC20268: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:0f.0 PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:0f.0 PDC20268: chipset revision 2 PDC20268: ROM enabled at 0xe8000000 PDC20268: 100% native mode on irq 11 ide2: BM-DMA at 0xe400-0xe407, BIOS settings: hde:pio, hdf:pio ide3: BM-DMA at 0xe408-0xe40f, BIOS settings: hdg:pio, hdh:pio Probing IDE interface ide2... hde: WDC WD1600JB-53EVA0, ATA DISK drive ide2 at 0xd400-0xd407,0xd802 on irq 11 Probing IDE interface ide3... Probing IDE interface ide3... Probing IDE interface ide4... ide4: Wait for ready failed before probe ! Probing IDE interface ide5... ide5: Wait for ready failed before probe ! hda: max request size: 128KiB hda: Host Protected Area detected. current capacity is 66055248 sectors (33820 MB) native capacity is 78165360 sectors (40020 MB) hda: 66055248 sectors (33820 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65531/16/63, UDMA(33) hda: cache flushes not supported hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 hde: max request size: 1024KiB hde: 312581808 sectors (160041 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=19457/255/63, UDMA(100) hde: cache flushes supported hde: hde1 hdc: ATAPI 52X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33) Notice how /dev/hda is limited by the BIOS, but /dev/hde is not? Most add-on IDE controllers fix BIOS limitations - I've even got an old 486 server sitting in my closet that has an add-on ISA IDE card to let it use >1GB drives - pretty high-end back in the mid-90's. > If you are not using this drive as your root (/) filesystem ... in > practice, that usually means it is not /dev/hda ... then ignore the BIOS > problem and let Linux handle that part. If you are using it for boot and > root, you'll have to partition it, at least enough that the BIOS and > lilo (or your bootloader of choice) can find the kernel to load it. > > I haven't yet used a drive this size as the boot drive, but if I were to > do so, I'd probably try something like this: > > /dev/hda1 about 50 MB, mount as /boot > /dev/hda2 swap, whatever size you need or want > /dev/hda3 about 120 GB, mount as / > /dev/hda4 remainder, probably mount as /home > > This is probably not the only arrangement that would work, and I can't > actually guarantee that it would work. But it likely would. Oh, and I > would make hda1 ext2, just to be safe. > > Beyond that ... please describe the problem more carefully. You say ls > works, and ls does require reading the drive. With a 250 GB drive, the > other commands you mention all either do (du) or might (depending on > unreported details) involve a WHOLE LOT of reading on a 250 GB drive, > which can take a long time (minutes, even if everything IS workingg > right). So please test more systematically, and please be as exact as > you can about what you are calling "locks up" (for example, does the > console not respond if you press ENTER while a cp or mv or tar operation > is running? if you run top in another xterm or console or telnet or ssh > session, can you switch to it and does it continue to run?). Can you cat > or more a short text file, or does that cause a hang? What about df? > > One thing you should check (this is true of any IDE drive, any size) is > that you have DMA enabled. If you use hdparm to query the drive > settings, it will report using_dma as on or off. If it is off, set it > (as root) with > > hdparm -d 1 /dev/hd* > > replacing * with the right drive designator. If DMA is not enabled, the > sorts of operations you report cas causing the "lock ups" will be > painfully slow with the size drive you have, and annoying slow with any > modern drive (by which I mean 40 GB and up). > You might also wnat to try swapping the IDE cable - or re-seating it. > I don't run reiserfs here, but I've run drives ranging from 160 GB to > 250 GB for well over a year now, using ext2 and ext3, with no trouble at > all, in non-boot settings. > > Finally, if you want technical help with kernel details, it helps to > mention what kernel you are using and what distro it is from (because > all distros I know of customize their kernels, at least a little bit). > > > > - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs