hdparm

[Rob Mahurin <alphenglor@rhct093.res.utk.edu>]

Hullo,

I am trying to set up hdparm to put my hard drive to sleep after a certain
timout (the -S option, I think it is).  I thought it would be prudent to go
through and make certain that my hardware reacted OK before I set it up, not
really expecting any problems.  "hdparm -y /dev/hd[ab]" works fine.  "hdparm
-Y /dev/hda" works fine.  However, "hdparm -Y /dev/hdb" produces an error
message something like 

hdparm: hdb: drive read status  0xff { BUSY }

about twice a second and completely locks my keyboard/mouse so that the only
way I can communicate with my computer is with the poweroff button.  I'm
prety sure that it wasn't literally "drive read status," but it was
something like that and the 0xff and BUSY I do remember. 

My first question is:  why?  I have a hunch that this has something to do
with the fact that hdparm is in /usr/sbin/, which is on hdb, but beyond
that I'm not sure.

My second question:  if I set a timeout, will this happen again?

My third question (which is actually not an hdparm question, but more
general and I haven't been able to find docs):  how would I get this
hypothetical timeout to get set at boot time?  I think I would put a script
in /etc/init.d (echo hdparm -S <timeout> /dev/hd[ab] >
/etc/init.d/hdparmtimeout) and then link to it from one of my rc.N
directories, but I'm not sure and am fearful to mess with this also.

Here is some helpful info about my system.  Thanks for your help.

Rob

dmesg:
[snip]
APM BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x1b (Driver version 1.2)
    Entry f000:6736 cseg16 f000 dseg f000 cseg len ffff, dseg len ffff
    Connection version 1.1
    AC on line, battery status unknown, battery life unknown
    battery flag 0x80, battery life unknown
Sound initialization started
<MSS audio codec (CS4231)> at 0x534 irq 11 dma 0,0
<MPU-401 0.0  Midi interface #1> at 0x330 irq 5 dma 0
<Yamaha OPL3 FM> at 0x388
Sound initialization complete
ide: i82371 PIIX (Triton) on PCI bus 0 function 57
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf
hda: WDC AC32500H, 2441MB w/128kB Cache, CHS=620/128/63, DMA
hdb: FUJITSU MPB3064ATU, 6187MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=788/255/63, DMA
hdc: CD-ROM CDU311, ATAPI CDROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306
[snip]

18:11 $ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>               <dump>
<pass>
/dev/hda5       /               ext2    defaults,errors=remount-ro   0
1
/dev/hda6               none            swap    sw          0       0
proc                /proc           proc    defaults    0       0
/dev/hdb7 /home ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/hda7 /var ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/hdb6 /usr ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/hda8 /usr/local ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/hdb5 /usr/src ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/cdrom /cdrom       iso9660 ro,user,noauto  0  0
/dev/fd0   /floppy      auto    user,noauto     0  0
/dev/hda1  /windoze     vfat    defaults,uid=1000,gid=101,umask=027     0  0
/dev/hdb1  /winprogs    vfat    defaults,uid=1000,gid=101,umask=027     0  0

-- 
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