Topic: DMA problem

[Steve]

I decided to try the following command on a server to see if DMA would improve the performance.

[root@sme5 /root]# /sbin/e-smith/config setprop hdparm status enabled

After rebooting e-smith hung at 'hdparm'.  I tried reinstalling e-smith.  I'm now having problems getting it reinstalled.  Would DMA still be enabled after reinstalling e-smith?  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

(HD- Western Digital 20GB 7200 RPM)

[Dan G.]

Er, that's a bad sign.  Incompatible settings fed to a hard drive via hdparm can in fact damage the drive.  It would be unfortunate if this was your situation.  If it is a goner, I'd suggest you try a different make.  WD has kinda slipped in quality, IMO ---  I have hdparm running on IBM drives, Seagate drives, and Maxtor drives with no problems.  The performance increase is significant...

Dan

[Steve]

Surely I can download firmware or something from WD.  Hopefully I can salvage it!  How do you test your drives performance?  I'm looking for a program that will give you a MB/s transfer reading.  I also have a Quantum Fireball AS 40GB 7200 RPM.  Do you know if it would work with DMA?  I think Quantum and Maxtor were supposed to be similar??

Thanks,
Steve

[Steve]

I tried one more time and for some 'unknown' reason it worked.  The only thing I changed was, I was having problems with my floppy so I took it out got it working but decided to leave it out for now.  I can't see any reason why taking the floppy out would affect the HD.  I assume it was probably just a coincedence.

Also, I just noticed the BIOS recognized the processor as a Cyrix MII-300 instead of a Cyrix MII-266, but now it is back to recognizing it as Cyrix MII-266.

I think its about time to replace that computer!!

Once again, thanks for your help. (I downloaded a WD program but haven't used it since it started working now.  Its supposed to allow you to change the UDMA settings)

Steve

[Dan G.]

Use "hdparm -t -T /dev/hdX"  where "X" is the letter of the drive --- most likely /dev/hda.

Good luck to you!

Dan

[Tom Keiser]

You will want to download the WD diagnostic s/w from this site:
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp and run dlgdiag from a Win9x environment to fully test the drive. If the drive is toast, it might be in warranty, or you might be in the market for another drive.

Quantum was recently purchased by Maxtor, but previously made rather high quality drives compared to either WD or Maxtor, which tend to be "economy oem" level drives.

As another post said, stick with IBM or high-end Seagate drives and you won't go wrong.

Good Luck,

Tom

Steve wrote:
>
> Surely I can download firmware or something from WD.
> Hopefully I can salvage it!  How do you test your drives
> performance?  I'm looking for a program that will give you a
> MB/s transfer reading.  I also have a Quantum Fireball AS
> 40GB 7200 RPM.  Do you know if it would work with DMA?  I
> think Quantum and Maxtor were supposed to be similar??
>
> Thanks,
> Steve