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jbpros
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 133
Location: Brussels, Belgium
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 Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 5:12 pm Post subject: Maxtor disk replacement |
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Hi everybody, hope you're fine 
For some days now Windows XP started complaining about disk data loss. I didn't pay much attention to it as I'm not using windows quite often (dual boot gentoo/xp). I had to work with my local domino server under windows and noticed a chkdsk at boot. I started thinking: hu-ho, the disk is dying (I've seen this several times on customers machines and when it happens on NTFS partitions, it's often caused by disk failures).
I then booted with powermax to see that the disk was effectively failing. I opened an RMA ticket on maxtor's website and the new disk will arrive soon.
I'm used to disk failures but this time I'm wondering if this could have been caused by wrong hdparm settings. Lately I tried improving the disk's performances and had issues with the "-m16" flag. It rendered the system unstable yelling about IRQ problems (boot process was stuck at "setting kernel parameters").
Test phase settings:
| Code: | | disc0_args="-d1 -X69 -u1 -m16 -c3" |
Daily-use settings:
| Code: | | disc0_args="-d1 -X69 -u1 -c3" |
Now I'm wondering if this problem (which is still not clear to me) could have caused the disk to physically fail. Here is some lines of the -m flag part of the hdparm manpage:
| Quote: | | [...]Multiple sector mode (aka IDE Block Mode), is a feature of most modern IDE hard drives [...] Some drives claim to support multiple mode, but lose data at some settings. Under rare circumstances, such failures can result in massive filesystem corruption. |
This is kind of scary but I really thought (and still think) that my 6Y160M0 160GB maxtor drive should not fall into this category (though I can't be 100% sure). This is not "exotic hardware" and it's widely used.
Do you think I'm wrong? Can this setting really alter this specific disk integrity? Can those data losses explained in the manpage make the disk return an error code under powermax or is this errorcode proving that the data loss is not due to the hdparm settings?
Please note that I noticed NO data loss on my ext3 partitions.
I think I'm just paranoid and I can't tell if the disk's data losses started before I changed this setting.. this fact would destroy all my doubts
Have a nice day/evening. |
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zrubi
n00b
Joined: 04 Mar 2004
Posts: 40
Location: Budapest, Hungary
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:27 am Post subject: Re: Maxtor disk replacement |
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| jbpros wrote: |
Now I'm wondering if this problem (which is still not clear to me) could have caused the disk to physically fail.
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Surely not.
These settings (if you use them incorrectly) can cause filesystem damage but not physical.
| Quote: |
Lately I tried improving the disk's performances and had issues with the "-m16" flag. It rendered the system unstable yelling about IRQ problems
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This (probably) means there are some other problems around your hardware settings. (possible your disk adapter shares IRQ with a PCI slot and this PCI device is not able to share IRQ at all)
But again, it can not harm your disk physically. It is cause "only" filesystem corruptions. |
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jbpros
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 133
Location: Brussels, Belgium
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:54 am Post subject: |
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| Thank you zrubi. Your comment consildates my ideas |
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Kernel & Hardware
