Re: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability
At 09:27 PM 6/23/2003 -0700, you wrote: I had the same alarm bells going off. The ONTRACK disk overlay and Linux have always been incompatible (or so I thought). If your bios has SMART capability, I assume that your mobo is new, so I can't figure out why you would need ONTRACK, except that ONTRACK is installed on your old drive. You must use ONTRACK to remove ONTRACK, if I remember correctly, because a simple dos format won't do the trick. My bet is that the ONTRACK manager is fubaring your installs with modern systems, and your best bet is to use the ONTRACK boot disk to rid your drive of it. Mind you, all this stuff is from memory, because it has been years since I used a disk manager. e. a low level format will fix it too...but most BIOSes dont' allow that anymore. shame. :( - FemmeFatale, aka The Skirt Good Decisions Your boss Made: We'll do as you suggest and go with Linux. I've always liked that character from Peanuts. - Source: Dilbert Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
RE: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability
I don't know if the CRC problem is solved with WD, but I have 3 boxes running Linux (Mandrake 8.2 and Mandrake 9.0) with only WD hard drives (40 Gigs ATA 100 and 80Gigs ATA133) with no problem. For now, they are the best HD I've never bought (lot of problems with Maxtor and IBM HDs). Albert -Original Message- From: FemmeFatale [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 3:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability At 02:19 PM 6/23/2003 -0400, you wrote: On Monday 23 June 2003 08:34 am, sstubbs wrote: Anyone know different? Don't know if it has anything to do with your problems at all, but Civileme used to say to avoid WD drives like the plague... claimed they did not do CRC stuff right, especially at higher DMA/UDMA levels :-( -- /\ DarkLord \/ Someone on the OT list was saying that isn't the case anymore... SOmeone care to post a URL to dis/prove this? I have a WD here in my comp now... it was cheap, i'm poor... i'm using the maxtor for linux though. I may experiment after all... on a side note, one partition got toasted by windows jsut this last week... don't know why. Guess which drive it was on? - FemmeFatale, aka The Skirt Good Decisions Your boss Made: We'll do as you suggest and go with Linux. I've always liked that character from Peanuts. - Source: Dilbert Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability
06/24/03 Sorry for the confusion. I was only using ONTRACK (from a floppy disk) to get the partition table wiped clean so I could format the entire disk. I never could get FDISK to remove the Linux partions in the extended partition, so I could remove the extended partion. Thanks for the reply and the concern. The Other. Erylon Hines wrote: I had the same alarm bells going off. The ONTRACK disk overlay and Linux have always been incompatible (or so I thought). Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability
On Tuesday 24 Jun 2003 2:58 am, Tom Brinkman wrote: As to the subject, SMART, I believe y'all would be better off disabling this useless marketing gimick. When it does manage to work, it's already too late most all the time, and it will constantly impose an overhead on IDE transfers while it's enabled. Periodic checks with Linux tools when you suspect HDD problems are much better. You can use all of 'em with SMART disabled in bios. One is hddtemp, hddtemp-0.3-0.beta4.2mdk (that's cooker, but I believe it's available for older Mandrake versions). Reads HDD temp from SMART capable drives, without SMART bios B$ regarding smart I have it disabled in bios. But normal installation of mdk 9.1 enables smart as shown by lshw program as given below. *-ide:0 description: Channel 0 bus info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] logical name: ide0 clock: 33MHz *-disk:0 description: ATA Disk product: ST320413A bus info: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:master logical name: /dev/hda version: 3.39 serial: 6ED1JBLC size: 18GB capacity: 18GB capabilities: ata dma lba iordy smart security pm configuration: mode=udma5 smart=on *-disk:1 description: ATA Disk product: SAMSUNG SP4002H bus info: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:slave logical name: /dev/hdb version: QU100-60 serial: 0411J1FT811301 size: 37GB capacity: 37GB capabilities: ata dma lba iordy smart security pm configuration: mode=udma5 smart=on Or am I mistaken that smart=on is something else? -- L.V.Gandhi 203, Soundaryalahari Apartments, Lawsons Bay colony, Visakhapatnam, 530017 MECON, 5th Floor, RTC Complex, Visakhapatnam AP 530020 INDIA Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability
At 07:49 AM 6/23/2003 -0500, you wrote: SNIPs some hummingbirds ... you finish the thought... My guess is that Win95B and NT 4.0 have never heard about HDD S.M.A.R.T Capability, and didn't try to write to the Western Digital using it. Whereas Mandrake 9.1 is new and sophisticated enough to know about HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability and was using it to write to a drive that didn't support it. Hence all the problems with Linux files on the Western Digital. Anyone know different? The Other I know nothing about MIDI So i won't address that. But your presumption is correct about the HDD. - FemmeFatale, aka The Skirt Good Decisions Your boss Made: We'll do as you suggest and go with Linux. I've always liked that character from Peanuts. - Source: Dilbert Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability
At 02:19 PM 6/23/2003 -0400, you wrote: On Monday 23 June 2003 08:34 am, sstubbs wrote: Anyone know different? Don't know if it has anything to do with your problems at all, but Civileme used to say to avoid WD drives like the plague... claimed they did not do CRC stuff right, especially at higher DMA/UDMA levels :-( -- /\ DarkLord \/ Someone on the OT list was saying that isn't the case anymore... SOmeone care to post a URL to dis/prove this? I have a WD here in my comp now... it was cheap, i'm poor... i'm using the maxtor for linux though. I may experiment after all... on a side note, one partition got toasted by windows jsut this last week... don't know why. Guess which drive it was on? - FemmeFatale, aka The Skirt Good Decisions Your boss Made: We'll do as you suggest and go with Linux. I've always liked that character from Peanuts. - Source: Dilbert Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability
On Monday June 23 2003 02:57 pm, FemmeFatale wrote: Don't know if it has anything to do with your problems at all, but Civileme used to say to avoid WD drives like the plague... claimed they did not do CRC stuff right, especially at higher DMA/UDMA levels :-( /\ DarkLord \/ Someone on the OT list was saying that isn't the case anymore... SOmeone care to post a URL to dis/prove this? I have a WD here in my comp now... it was cheap, i'm poor... i'm using the maxtor for linux though. I may experiment after all... on a side note, one partition got toasted by windows jsut this last week... don't know why. Guess which drive it was on? No idea, Winsux handles drives very sloppily (pci/ide/buffer, etc.) Most of the time without complaint when it should, sometimes utter disaster when there shouldn't be one. A lot of M$ users think they got infected by a virus, when all that's happened is Billy fsck'd their HDD (among other things ;) by corruption. Time to re-install ;) As to WD drives and CRC checking, Yes, from reading current lkml this is still the case. YMMV, search 'wd drive' (and such) on lkml http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernelr=1w=2 for your own take. I believe civileme's advice is still very valid, avoid win-drives that WD markets. He was more adamant on this than me tho. Only WD's since August 1998 are very suspect IMO. WD CRC checks continue to be invalid. They're win-drives (since 8/98). BUT, while only WD is accused of non-standard CRC, all drives made by anybody, are sort'a at risk. IMO, they've all gone down hill dependability wise. Maxtor's are probly currently the most attractive alternative. As an ol'time overclocker I never would a thought I'd say that. Maxtor is known to be one of the worst for handlin off spec PCI bus speeds. 'Course hardly anything will anymore, SCSI never would ;) As to the subject, SMART, I believe y'all would be better off disabling this useless marketing gimick. When it does manage to work, it's already too late most all the time, and it will constantly impose an overhead on IDE transfers while it's enabled. Periodic checks with Linux tools when you suspect HDD problems are much better. You can use all of 'em with SMART disabled in bios. One is hddtemp, hddtemp-0.3-0.beta4.2mdk (that's cooker, but I believe it's available for older Mandrake versions). Reads HDD temp from SMART capable drives, without SMART bios B$ -- Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mandrake 9.1 and HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability
I had the same alarm bells going off. The ONTRACK disk overlay and Linux have always been incompatible (or so I thought). If your bios has SMART capability, I assume that your mobo is new, so I can't figure out why you would need ONTRACK, except that ONTRACK is installed on your old drive. You must use ONTRACK to remove ONTRACK, if I remember correctly, because a simple dos format won't do the trick. My bet is that the ONTRACK manager is fubaring your installs with modern systems, and your best bet is to use the ONTRACK boot disk to rid your drive of it. Mind you, all this stuff is from memory, because it has been years since I used a disk manager. e. Last week was very frustrating. The slave Maxtor drive went back to PC Peripherals (this was an OEM drive), so I decided to continue the dual-boot Win95B and Mandrake 9.1 system on the remaining master Western Digital drive. Total disaster. Linux wouldn't install from the Boxed CDs. Bash, kernel, and up to 30 different packages wouldn't install. Never would boot up. Eventually (after 5 days I finally went back to Ontrack's Disk Manager and MS-Dos 5.0 to get the Western Digital to format in FAT16) I was able to install Win95B and Windows NT 4.0. I then reformatted and got NT 4.0 running and am using it now. Whereas Mandrake 9.1 is new and sophisticated enough to know about HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability and was using it to write to a drive that didn't support it. Hence all the problems with Linux files on the Western Digital. Anyone know different? The Other The Other: My bet is that SMART is a red herring, and that there are some more basic hardware problems involved. Here's why: (1) You last did a hardware upgrade in 1998, (2) you had to use Ontrack Disk Manager and DOS 5 to partition and format the drive as FAT16, and (3) you're running Win95B and NT 4.0. All of this is old technology -- much older than anticipated by either Mandrake or 30 gb drives. I'm particularly concerned about the reference to Ontrack Disk Manager. My only experience with this program (circa 1991) was to enable the use of larger disks than the system BIOS could handle. It did this by loading a DOS overlay in CONFIG.SYS. I understand that later versions diddle the MBR (Hmmm... lilo also fiddles with the MBR). OTOH, you speak of running Mandrake 9.1, and that confuses the hell out of me. How about telling us more about your hardware? Motherboard, BIOS (any updates), RAM, drives would be especially interesting. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
