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Date:      Fri, 14 Feb 2003 18:33:01 +0000
From:      Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk>
To:        northern snowfall <dbailey27@ameritech.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Hard error??
Message-ID:  <20030214183301.GA4238@fourtytwo.gamesoc>
In-Reply-To: <3E4D333B.5070705@ameritech.net>
References:  <F139rpyKHeIhoROq7VB00017f4e@hotmail.com> <3E4D316C.5040706@potentialtech.com> <3E4D333B.5070705@ameritech.net>

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On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 01:19:39PM -0500, northern snowfall wrote:
> I used to get this error on a FreeBSD while using a perfectly stable 
> harddrive. That
> harddrive is managed via Solaris now, but, I determined the issue during 
> its FreeBSD
> usage was DMA. If you are running two disks on the same ATA channel with
> different DMA capabilities, the capabilities may be causing scrambles in 
> the
> negotiation of I/O on the line. The solution is to put ATA drives that 
> use _only_ the
> same DMA caps on the same ATA channel. If you only have two drives, simply
> put ATA0.1 on ATA1.0. This stopped my "falling back to PIO" messages and
> probably saved the disk from hard failure caused by misuse.
> Don

Is this a bug in the FreeBSD ATA driver then?  I used an IBM DeskStar
drive and had Linux running perfectly well on it.  I backed up all my
data, deleted the partitions and went to install FreeBSD on it.   The
installation failed with lots of 'hard error' messages.  Did FreeBSD
kill my hard drive, or was it just luck that I got my data off the drive
with minutes to spare?   I know DeskStar drives are notorious for
failure, but I did indeed have DMA66 and DMA33 drives on the same
channel, and thought it a bit suspicious that the drive died at the
instant I tried to install FreeBSD.

Bruce Cran

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