HI all!!!

I have been recently having a lot of problems with one of my HDD. It's a Matrox 120GB HDD formated with fat32.
I've noticed this harddrive is quite slow, so i checked with hdparm if the dma was enabled. To my surprise, it wasn't, so i put it. I even made an entry to /etc/rc5.d/S99local file to not having to do it everytime i switch on the pc.

Few moments ago, i had to put it back (hdparm -d1 /dev/hdb) and to my surprise (again), after five minutes, it was disbled again!! Putting manually DMA option to the hard drive does not give any error, and for a while it's working, but then (i don't know how or why) it's just disabled.

I'm sure i have compiled the kernel with DMA support, and checking dmesg, i found this error:

hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
hdb: DMA disabled

When booting the kernel, i get this:

hda: Write Cache FAILED Flushing!
hda: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }

hdb: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hdb: Write Cache FAILED Flushing!

This 2 messages appear several times....

I'm running a 2.6.6 custom kernel.

Both HDD run just fine under WinXP

What's happening to my HDDs??? Should I upgrade the kernel?? How can i solve this??

Thanks in advance

These errors are common when you do not have the proper support for your IDE controller in your kernel. The kernel can access the drives but cannot cannot set the DMA mode correctly. What kind of motherboard do you use?


Håkan

It's an ASUS P4S8X-X.
Fortunatelly I still keep the old kernel (the one that came out of the box). I'll boot with it and see if I get those errors again.
So i guess i'll have to recompile the kernel again. I guess the problem should be under Device Drivers --> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support isn't it?

OK, booted with the old kernel, same problem.... What can i do now? Any ideas??

Thnx

EDIT: Downloading kernel 2.6.7 and recompiling again....hope it's gonna work. If someone has any idea, pls share

Well, it's kinda wierd, but upgrading the kernel solved the problem.
I'm still getting the same errors, but i have dma enabled at least, and the "hdparm -Tt /dev/hdb" test is good.
hw-tph, thanks for your help