On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 09:02:55PM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: > Hello list members, > > Today I noticed that I was having a problem with CD burning. Basically, > all I could burn were coasters. I am running Sarge with pretty much > everything stock, except for a few backports (oo2, gphoto2, wx2.6 and a > few Debian developer tools). I also have a custom compiled kernel, but > I have been running the same kernel for about 8 months without issue. > > I burned about 8 coasters before it occurred to me to check my drive > settings with hdparm. It turns out that I had something like this: > > roberto@miami:~$ sudo hdparm /dev/hdd > > /dev/hdd: > IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit) > unmaskirq = 0 (off) > using_dma = 0 (off) > keepsettings = 0 (off) > readonly = 0 (off) > readahead = 8192 (on) > HDIO_GETGEO failed: Invalid argument > > Of course, that made each burn get about 4 to 10 MB in and then > completely fail. The error it gave was a "media error." The strange > thing is that I also burned some DVD+RW and CD-RW without any hassle. I > am guessing that the slower write speeds for those media didn't put too > much strain on the system to keep up. Either way, I ended up having to > do this to get back on track: > > roberto@miami:~$ sudo hdparm -c1 -d1 -u1 -a 8192 /dev/hdd > > /dev/hdd: > setting fs readahead to 8192 > setting 32-bit IO_support flag to 1 > setting unmaskirq to 1 (on) > setting using_dma to 1 (on) > IO_support = 1 (32-bit) > unmaskirq = 1 (on) > using_dma = 1 (on) > readahead = 8192 (on) > > > This brings me to my question. Does anyone know of a way to get the > system to notify me of any changes to the DMA status of the drives? On > looking back in the syslog, I see this entry: > > Sep 24 17:38:16 miami vmunix: hdd: DMA disabled > > However, I am wondering if anyone knows of something to monitor for > those sorts of changes and notify the user. Something like a console > warning for programs that try to access the device, or a pop up window > if the user is logged in to an X session. I can probably code something > up, but I also don't want to reinvent the wheel. > > Regards, > Hi Roberto, the only thing that I can think of that changes drive settings is the kernel and hdparm. Maybe one of the cd burning programs is invoking hdparm? And if so, maybe it doesn't undo its settings after its done? As for the notification, there would have to be some mechanism that generates those events. I am aware of inotify for file systems changes but not of anything that would detect a command that changes drive paramaters. What about always invoking hdparam in rc.local? And just a wild guess: does this system boot in to win$ as people say that win$ can fiddle with devices like wifi cards, clocks and other things for some unknown reason. cheers, Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | debian.home.pipeline.com | | `. `' Operating System | go to counter.li.org and | | `- http://www.debian.org/ | be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org |
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