# Harddisk causes system freezes

## Palhoto

Hi,

This problem is dificult to describe with only some keywords and I haven't yet found a solution to the problem by googling.

I would really like some pointers in this area as I am not really acquainted with harddrive system crashes. I can get there, I'm just a bit lost at the moment. Any similar problems that your aware of are appreciated as I'll pick up the main vocabulary used and can start refining my search.

My system used to crash regularly (freeze: no response whatsoever). It happened in Gentoo and Windows. First I thought it was a kernel problem, then after two months I had need to dual boot to windows xp and saw that it also happened in the MS OS.

Some days ago I lost the "/" reiserfs partition, on the 80GB Maxtor I have with all my OSs. I bought a new harddrive (120GB Seagate) so I wouldn't lose anything else on the other one, and started a Gentoo only (no MSWindows) multi-partitioned harddrive. Please ignore the recovering of the "/" reiserfs partition, it may still readable, but the regular scan and fix tools haven't yet got me anywhere.

I have almost exclusively used the Seagate to install gentoo anew. I'm now using x86 stage3 with GRP packages (it is a PIII 850, not too much time to lose), no optimizations. The kernel is gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.9-r1.

I have only lost the "/" partition on the Maxtor, but I still have the /home partition and others available to transfer to the new HD (I'm planning on using the 80GB Harddrive for windows only).

When I started to "copy -a..." the old /home to the new harddrive, the system freezes started to happen frequently. I eventually copied enough configuration files to get my regular work environment available (it took several hard-resets). I still haven't finished the whole transfer.

If I don't mount and read from the Maxtor, the system doesn't freeze (well, up to now at least).

I also have a strange motherboard that could induce the problem. It's an Abit BE-6 that has 4 IDE interfaces: 2 UDMA66 and 2 UDMA33; by each interface I mean "Primary" or "Secondary", the UDMA66 interfaces are controled by an HPT366 embedded chipset (which driver I have enabled in the kernel).

My hipothesis is that the problem is concerned with the Maxtor harddrive, though I cannot be entirely sure, but I'd like to be as the disk is still in the waranty period. What do you recomend be the next steps to certify this problem?

I'd also like to be able to copy the rest of the contents of the Maxtor drive, without any system freezes (there is no way around them once they happen). Is there a way to prevent these freezes, even by loosing performance?

Thank you very much for your time. And happy holidays  :Wink: ,

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## Coz

Just a tought.. are you sure that the problem is your hard drive? I mean, it could be a problem with the ram... check if it's not dusty, poorly plugged or defective.. try to see if using programs which use high amounts of memory don't cause crashes.. you know like trying to run kde, blender with many objects, 3D games, open office all at once..

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## nunya

I have a BE-6 as well (not in use)  I had the same problem with it.  It wound up being bad capacitors on the motherboard i since have replaced them.  Look for some brown stuff coming out of the top of the capacitors or some of the capacitors are sorta higher off the board then the others.  Burnin smells are also a god hint.  You could possibly try to disable the onboard HPT controller to eliminate it being an issue.

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## Palhoto

 *Coz wrote:*   

> Just a tought.. are you sure that the problem is your hard drive?

 

Well, in fact 90% sure.

 *Coz wrote:*   

> I mean, it could be a problem with the ram... check if it's not dusty, poorly plugged or defective.. 

 

I cleaned the inside a week ago.

 *Coz wrote:*   

> try to see if using programs which use high amounts of memory don't cause crashes.. you know like trying to run kde, blender with many objects, 3D games, open office all at once..

 

I've done that, no problems. When I was describing the "cp -a ..." command, I was only in text mode, I didn't have X running and it happened frequently with the same command over the same directories in the Maxtor disk.

Now I only mount the 80GB Maxtor Harddrive if I need a file from it (then unmount it afterwords), so I never again had the same problem as I only use the Seagate.

 *nunya wrote:*   

> I have a BE-6 as well (not in use) I had the same problem with it. It wound up being bad capacitors on the motherboard i since have replaced them. Look for some brown stuff coming out of the top of the capacitors or some of the capacitors are sorta higher off the board then the others. Burnin smells are also a god hint. You could possibly try to disable the onboard HPT controller to eliminate it being an issue.

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out after my work session.

I could disable the HPT controller but then I would loose 2 UDMA66 channels and would have to use Master/slave combinations on the "regular" UDMA33 channels. It makes a difference  :Sad: .

The 120GB Seagate is connected to the HPT Secondary Master while the Maxtor is connected to the HPT Primary Master. I'll try switching them and see if the Seagate has problems.

Another problem that could be related is charsets. Some files/directories have "???" in their names, but I don't beleive it is a problem as the same thing happens in Windows.

Thank you both for your help, I'll post back when I have news.

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## NeddySeagoon

Palhoto,

Are you using 80 conductor IE ribbons on the IDE 66 ports?

If not, the commands and data are likely to be corrupt.

Better an IDE 33 that worls than and IDE 66 that fails like this.

Emerge some smart tools and check the drives internal error recording ststus.

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## Palhoto

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> Palhoto,
> 
> Are you using 80 conductor IE ribbons on the IDE 66 ports?

 

Yep.

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> Better an IDE 33 that worls than and IDE 66 that fails like this.

 

I suppose the problem is not due to the IDE66 controller but to the Maxtor disk itself. I'll try plugging it to the IDE33 to see if it still happens.

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> Emerge some smart tools and check the drives internal error recording ststus.

 

Will do, thanks. Though the error doesn't come from writting to the Maxtor disk. The only thing I have written to it lately (after the "/" partition failure) is it's MBR for use with grub (/boot is on the seagate-secondaryIDE66).

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## Palhoto

Hey,

I've connected the supposedly faulty drive to IDE33 Primary Slave and everything is working perfectly. Soon I shall try using a 9GB IBM hardrive on the IDE66 Primary Master to see if the crashes happen again. The Seagate is still connected to the IDE66 and is the main disk.

Thank you all for your help.

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