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 -- There's no such thing as an original sin. -- Elvis Costello