Hardrive

[spuhler]

I just purchased all the parts for a new state of the art box with a DFI 76SN MB, a AMD 761/VIA686Bchipset, an AMD Duron 800, 256MB of DDR266 memory NVidia card, TDK 12x CD burner.
I am using my 1 year old WD102AA spartan HD (ATA66) with 80 lead cable.
However, the PC and th HD don't get along with each other.
I am trying to install Mandrake 8.0 and get the first problems when partitioning the HD. Sometimes it seems it's working and sometimes I get very erratic results. I do not get these problems with Mandrake 7.2 or when I install Mandrake 8.0 on a slower Duron box.
The bios settings: I used LBA and autodetection. W/O LBA I don't get anywhere at all.
It seems that the drive cannot handle the speed of the data from the MB?
the OS seems to detect the correct amount of total sectors.
any suggestions. Is there a way to slow down the datatransfer?
Tom

[paradox]

I am going to do some more research on this one...but the first I would try with you is not to slow down the data transfer, but to make sure the transfer is in sync. How to do this, well the cable your using. First, don't get me wrong if you know this already, I am just starting from scratch without making any assumptions. Make sure that your cables red line on your hard drive is facing the power connection. Second, make sure the cable has quite a few ridges (higher data transfer, faster, etc) instead of a few bulky ones. If all of this is the case, attempt plugging your harddrive into ide2...if this doesn't work, set it on a slower cable. You can use the old EIDE cables(usually come with your case or mboard). That should do it for you. I know in the older versions of Linux I had to do this and then download drivers to fix it. If none of this works, let me know and I'll try to find something else for you. Plus post the error messages you get and post your bios settings. With those two things we should be able to decode the problem your having.....

Aragorn

[jman_77]

hmm.. mandrake's picky... Is the hdd set to autodetect on each boot? If so, go into your bios and use the 'hdd autodetect' function to actually physically set the properties for the drive.
That seems to fix a world of problems with drake 8. Heck if I know why.

[spuhler]

well, I manged to get it working, but unfortunatly on a slower speed.
My 80 pin cable came with the motherboard and is very well marked. System, master, slave and it is also code, so connecting it the wrong way is almost impossible.
I replaced this cable with a 40 pin (40 strands) and it worked ok for quite a while. However, my HD was also mounted in a removable rack just above my CD-RW and got quite hot during installation. I therefore moved it one bay up and that, together with the "old" cable did the trick.
I believe this confirm my first suspicion that the WD102AA cannot handle the specified Mode 4 Ultra ATA 66
Thanks for your help
Tom

[spuhler]

Well, I wrongfully assumed that I managed it. It goot more data corruption as soon as I upgrade with newer RMPS. The HD just cannot handle the data flow. It works quite well with LM7.2. That installs in PIO mode and does not show DMA when doing a hdparm /dev/hda

Does anybody know how to install LM8.0 so it uses PIO mode during install? LM8.0 just overrides the BIOS sttings!
Tom

[JimH]

Hi,

Try booting the install with: linux ide=nodma
Also, this may sound strange, if you have ACPI power saving enabled in the bios disable it.

[spuhler]

1. I got a reply from WD. They say that they do not support Linux OS's. They just ignored the statement that the drive does not live up to their specified performance.
2. I purchased an IBM 60GXP as a replacement. When doing a HDPARM I'll get 170MB/s buffered and 39MB/s sustained, both at the upper end of IBM's specification.
Tom