usb-storage data errors

From: DervishD
Date: Wed Nov 22 2006 - 05:53:20 EST


Hi all :)

I'm having a problem with usb-storage devices under:

- Two different kernels: 2.4.31 (vanilla) and 2.6.17 (Ubuntu).
- Two different USB 2.0 cards (ALi chipset and VIA chipset).
- So, two different drivers (OHCI and EHCI).
- Two different usb-storage adapters (an external USB box from an
unknown manufacturer and Conceptronic CIDE23U). Both are
USB-to-IDE adapters.
- Many different hard disks.
- Both vfat and ext2/3 filesystems.
- Perfect RAM (at least, that's what memtest says).
- Correctly cooled system.

The problem is the following: whenever I copy a lot of data to
the usb-storage device (more than a few GB's), the copy goes OK,
without an error, but when I compare the copied files with the
original files, sometimes a copied file is different. This does not
happen if I copy the files one by one, and it doesn't happens all the
time, sometimes the copy is perfect.

In addition to this, from time to time the usb-storage adapters
(any of them, with any of the USB cards and any kernel) report a read
error, telling that some sector could not be read. This is false
because if I repeat the operation, the sector is correctly retrieved.
This can be related to some kind of timing problem, I don't know.

The fact is that I cannot reproduce the problem reliably, so I
cannot give you a "recipe", except that it happens when I copy a lot
of data at a time.

Any suggestion about how to narrow the problem down? Any more
data that you may need? A known bug? Am I doing any stupidity?

Thanks a lot in advance :)

Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado

--
Linux Registered User 88736 | http://www.dervishd.net
It's my PC and I'll cry if I want to... RAmen!
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