Re: IDE hard disk problem...

["Daniel B." <dsb@smart.net>]

David Roundy wrote:
> 
> Hello everyone.  I've been getting the following error message (repeatedly,
> but with different sectors):
> 
> hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=2620329, sector=2620256
> end_request: I/O error, dev 03:01 (hda), sector 2620256
> 
> This has been accompanied by occasional system freezes.  My web search came
> up with some messages from people advising that this indicates a hard disk
> failure, 

I think that diagnosis has been wrong most of the time.  There
are recent kernel IDE problems that cause the behavior you've seen.


> However, I also recently
> switched from kernel 2.4.19 to 2.4.20, and haven't yet gotten around to
> going back to see if the same problem happens with my old kernel.


I'd recommend disabling IDE DMA (see hdparm) until you figure out
whether it's really a kernel problem, or actually a bad disk, or
something else.


Daniel
-- 
Daniel Barclay
dsb@smart.net