Re: hda: DMA timeout error, is it a problem ?

[Bob McGowan]

Douglas A. Tutty wrote:

On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 08:49:34PM +0200, Shams Fantar wrote:

I've currently a problem with my hard disk but I'm not sure that it is really a problem. So, I'm asking you if it's really a problem and if there are solutions or not. :-)

I ask me if this message is a problem or not :

Aug 22 11:03:20 sithare kernel: hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
Aug 22 11:03:20 sithare kernel: hda: DMA timeout error



Is it a problem ? Likewise, this slows the boot...


- And with the hdparm utility[3].

Aug 22 11:03:20 sithare kernel: hda: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Aug 22 11:03:20 sithare kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown - I've made a control of the hard disk with the smartctl utility (smartctl --test=long /dev/hda), see the result[2] :

Hi Shams,

Try shutdown, disable DMA in the bios, and reboot into single-user mode
(avoids mounting the drive rw).  See if the messages show up in dmesg.
Then reboot into normal mode and check syslog for that boot (ignore

previous boots).

I don't believe the read-only state is necessarily true. As I understand it (which could be wrong...), the root partition is mounted read-only so fsck can run and fix minor problems (if any). If that fails, you're dumped into a single user shell, to run fsck manually, and with root still mounted read-only. But if the fsck is OK, root is remounted read/write, so you can do system maintenance work from single user (which can include editing or deleting files from the root partition).

<---deleted comments re disks and S.M.A.R.T.-->

--
Bob

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