# [Solved] ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)

## Galumph

I'm not sure if this is a hardware error or a software one, but it's been driving me mad. My box stopped passing POST a while back, so opened it up and plugged in a half-plugged RAM chip. Now it boots fine, but it keeps showing these ata1 messages. It also takes forever for the BIOS to load grub, which leads me to think that it's a hardware error.

I have my kernel set to boot quiet for speed related reasons, and on boot I get these two messages:

```
[   10.458014] ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)

[   20.503011] ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
```

This harddrive, along with the rest of the hardware, is over ten years old. Does this mean it's finally dying, or did I just break something on the last kernel update?

The bootloader I use is the grub2 live ebuild.Last edited by Galumph on Sun Jul 15, 2012 6:42 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## eccerr0r

I saw this post via google: http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/454214-solved-ata1-srst-failed-errno-16-boot-extremely-slow-bios-disappears.html

But I did recently notice old PATA drives if they're not configured just right for master/slave (Master, Slave, Single, Cable Select) it can cause serious problems booting... Some of my drives can't even be configured properly and thus make it incompatible with certain controllers...

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## Galumph

Setting it to cable select seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks.

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