Re: Problems with EIDE driver (I think)

Chris Bagwell (cbagwell@rockdal.aud.alcatel.com)
Wed, 6 Mar 96 17:24:22 CST

>
> I have been using two EIDE drives with Linux for quite a while and have noticed a persistant
> problem. Under heavy load the drive assigned to /dev/hda sometimes hangs, that is the hard
> drive light stays on and the system enventually crashs.
>
> Looking at /var/log/messages reveals persistant hard drive errors of the form:
>
> Mar 6 09:11:53 hudsonpc kernel: hda: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
> Mar 6 09:11:53 hudsonpc kernel: ide0: reset: success
>
> This is always with /dev/hda never /dev/hdb/
>

I have this exact same problem. The strange part is that I have most of my stuff
located on /dev/hdb and pretty much just boot off of /dev/hda. I can often
reproduce it by simply recompiling the kernel (with the source code actually
located on /dev/hdb2).

I'm not sure what chipset my IDE controller uses but it is Promise brand.
I have only 8-meg of memory wich helps "heavy loads" happen often.
Happens on most kernel version although some are worts then others.
All of the 1.3.6x were pretty bad but got better around 1.3.69-70.

----------
Chris Bagwell | Alcatel Network Systems
cbagwell@aud.alcatel.com | Richardson, Texas