[hybrid]

Almost every boot of my FC6 system, I see these errors:

hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0
hdb: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0

(from dmesg | tail)

Are both hda (newish Western Digital) and hdb (older Maxtor) dying or is there something else going on?

I ran an fsck on boot, and it came up clean for both / and /home (both on hda).

/etc/fstab:

LABEL=/				 /					   ext3	defaults		1 1
devpts				  /dev/pts				devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
tmpfs				   /dev/shm				tmpfs   defaults		0 0
LABEL=/home			 /home				   ext3	defaults		1 2
proc					/proc				   proc	defaults		0 0
sysfs				   /sys					sysfs   defaults		0 0
/dev/hda3			   swap					swap	defaults		0 0
/dev/hdb1			   /windows/D			  vfat	defaults,uid=500	   0 0
/dev/hdb6			   /windows/E			  ntfs	defaults,ro,uid=500	0 0

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *		   1		3315	26627706	7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2			3316	   18995   125949600	f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3		   18996	   19093	  787185   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda5			3316		9689	51199123+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6			9690	   14788	40957686	7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda7		   14789	   16573	14337981	6  FAT16
/dev/hda8		   16574	   18995	19454683+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1			   1		3952	31744408+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb2			3953	   14946	88309305	f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5			3953		4155	 1630566	7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb6			4156		6195	16386268+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb7			6196	   14946	70292376	7  HPFS/NTFS

Anyone have any ideas?

[hybrid]

Anyone have any ideas on what this might be?

I've also compiled the stock 2.6.18.3 kernel to see if it was an issue with FC6's kernel, but the messages still appear when booting from that.

Thanks for any help.

[anyweb]

have you tried running any disc diags on them from the manufacturers websites ?

and have you replaced the IDE cables ?

cheers
anyweb

[znx]

hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0
hdb: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0

This says to me BACKUP NOW, this is your disk coming to the end of its life (or if its new then its a dud ). These sorts of errors are generated when your disk isn't doing what the kernel is asking it to do. If you only get one or two of these, then its possible that it was an unusual request but if its happening regularly its definitely dying.

This is a nice example of using smartctl to monitor your hard disks: http://www.captain.a...ls-smartctl.php

[hybrid]

OK, thanks for the heads-up.

I'm running a backup right now, but just out of interest, I thought I'd boot into Fedora while the (removable) backup drive was in, and to my surpise/horror, it also reported exactly the same error on hdd.

This backup drive is fairly new and is never spinning unless I'm doing or restoring a backup (it sits in another machine's hard drive bay which has the IDE power cable to it pulled out).

So does this tell me that all three drives are dying simultaneously or is it just the kernel jumping the gun to try and access some data off the drive.

Another thing I noticed is that these errors always occur just before you see the line:

Starting smartd...			 [ OK ]

on the bootup.

As I understand it, smartd is something to do with hard drive monitoring, so does this tell the clever people () anything?

Thanks for the help anyway.

[znx]

Quote

As I understand it, smartd is something to do with hard drive monitoring, so does this tell the clever people () anything?

Does it only occur on boot? Or is it during use as well? It could be an issue with smartd attempting to do something on start to the disks.

[hybrid]

znx, on Nov 30 2006, 09:36 PM, said:

Quote

As I understand it, smartd is something to do with hard drive monitoring, so does this tell the clever people () anything?

Does it only occur on boot? Or is it during use as well? It could be an issue with smartd attempting to do something on start to the disks.

From what I can tell, it appears to be only coming up on boot.

The machine has been up for about 5 hours now, and no errors appear in dmesg or /var/log/messages about the HD since the bootup time.

[hybrid]

I found the problem, and thankfully it's means my hard drives are not (and aren't likely to become) two expensive doorstops.

I got contacted by someone reading this thread, and it turns out that the error codes are related to the drive not understanding SMART commands, because SMART is for some reason disabled at the BIOS level (I don't exactly understand why, but I do have the fix).

If anyone else experiences this behaviour, this is how I fixed it.

I rebooted and headed into the BIOS setup and found an option called 'Hard Drive SMART Enabled', which was turned off. Turning that option on, saving the BIOS settings and rebooting means the errors no longer appear. Yay!

[anyweb]

interesting result, what computer brand/model is this ? so others can google it

cheers
anyweb

[hybrid]

anyweb, on Feb 16 2007, 11:18 AM, said:

interesting result, what computer brand/model is this ? so others can google it

cheers
anyweb

It's actually a semi-self built machine, but this is with the Foxconn 661FXME motherboard (SiS 661FX chipset).

[anyweb]

Quote

DriveReady SeekComplete Error Foxconn 661FXME motherboard (SiS 661FX chipset)

perfect, that's all we need to help others

google bot do your stuff !

topic pinned

cheers

anyweb

[hybrid]

Apparently, this problem occurs due to a bug in the SMART start-up scripts in FC6, coupled with this setting on some BIOSes.

More info here - https://bugzilla.red...i?id=214502#c11

Thanks very much to Calvin Ostrum who contacted me and has taken the time to single-handedly track this bug down (it's his comment on the bug report I've linked to above).

[znx]

Ah .. awesome