Install hangs during disk access.

Arcanum · n00b Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 39

I'm trying to do a stage 1 install of Gentoo 1.4r4 on my system. It's an upgraded Dell system w/ a PIII-850, 512MB of SDRAM, a Western Digital UDMA66 13.8 GB hard drive on a Highpoint UDMA100 controller card (currently using the generic controller drivers on the CD-ROM, not Highpoint-specific drivers), nVidia Geforce2 MX400, and Sound Blaster Live!.

Basically, at random points during hard disk accesses, the process doing the access will just freeze for no apparent reason. At which point, any process which attempts to access that drive (even something as simple as Tab autocompletion) will also lock up. The problem was improved somewhat by forcing the drive into UDMA66 mode instead of the normal PIO or DMA mode, but it still locks up eventually.

I've tried moving the drive to different locations on the drive chain, I've tried using a Gentoo 1.2 CD (locked up even sooner), I've tested my memory (it's good). When installing, the only two drives hooked up on the system are the DVD-ROM drive as the primary master on the motherboard's drive controller, and the install target as primary or secondry master on the Highpoint controller.

Windows 2000, which is on another drive (which I disconnect to solve another problem), has no problem. Is my hard drive dying (it hasn't been used in close to a year)? Any suggestions?

slartibartfasz · Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 7:58 am Post subject:

did u already try to check the disk with a tool from WD - i think there is one to check integrity...
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Arcanum · n00b Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 39

My mistake: It's a Maxtor drive, not a WD. I downloaded the Maxtor utilities and checked the disk.

How's this for weird: The drive shows as fine on the built in motherboard hard drive controller, but the diagnostic program locks up hard when the drive is on the add-in card. I'm going to try compiling Gentoo with the drive on the motherboard controller, then moving it to the Highpoint controller. Maybe that will work.

inglewood · n00b Joined: 06 May 2003 Posts: 7 Location: Edmonton

Try forcing the drive into a slower DMA mode, something like hdparm -X66. UDMA 33 or 66 should work fine, as the drive doesn't really do better than 20 MB/s anyways. Sometimes the 100 MB/s controllers don't work properly with the older drives unless they are told what they are hooked up to.