"assuming drive cache write thru" message w/ Ubuntu Studio 10.04 (kernel 2.6.32-24)

infoseeker007 · 08-01-2010, 03:02 PM

Hi everyone! Yes, I am a Linux OS newbie but not new to other OS's (MAC OSX, WINxx). I want to learn not just enough to use Linux but to give back, promote Linux and contribute to the community. I am not a programmer but I am comfortable with the CLI (command line DOS 3.2 way back when) and want to learn programming and understand as much as technically possible especially OS theory, networking and practice.

Current problem: I have been running Ubuntu Studio 10.04 (kernel 2.6.32-24)(machine Dell GX-280 P-IV 2.8 HT, 4 GB DDR2, 2 SATA II HDD, 2 USB external HDD enclosures [1 1TB SATA 6, 1 400GB ide]) for months with very few problems. Boots have been normal. I am now receiving the following text message. No hardware changes were implemented.

"assuming drive cache write thru"

and inconsistent boots. More failed boots that not with same message whether GRUB auto-select or manual recovery chosen. Final line screen message "mountall" failed. Any thoughts on what is happening?

Thanks, infoseeker007

Laurens73 · 08-03-2010, 03:07 PM

Looks like some parameters are gone now. The message "assuming drive cache write thru" occurs when this option is not used at mount, so the kernel uses it automaticly cause of the way your partition appears. It's no failure, but just a message.

If you are certain you are using a write back setting, this can be added into the /etc/fstab file with "option data=writeback" in the line of the device wich is mounted. If you're not certain if you have got this setting normally, don't add this option to the file or your filesystem can crash.