From: Alan Porter (big@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu)
Date: 08/30/92


From: big@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Alan Porter)
Subject: HD interrupts and IDE
Date: 30 Aug 1992 16:10:30 GMT


I hope some of you guys can help me out with my Linux problems. I am
really excited about running Linux at home (key word: running :)

I have been getting the infamous "Unexpected HD interrupt" messages
whenever I do anything that requires a lot of disk activity (like tar,
or worse yet, rebuilding the kernel).

Even more annoying, I also get the "HD timeout", the 4 second wait, and
then the "HD-controller reset".

First, my system:
386-40, IDE drive (KLOC KL3120, 115 MB), 4 MB RAM, 60 MB Minix FS, 5 MB swap.

I had heard that these error messages happen a lot on ESDI drives, but I
have never heard of IDE drives giving these errors. As a quick fix, I
commented the printk lines out of /usr/src/linux/fd/blk_drv/hd.c, but I have
also been having trouble getting the linux source to compile (I get the
problems with tools/build.c). What compounds the problems is the fact
that my hard disk spends about 50% of it's time "timed out" when I am
doing a kernel build, so it takes about an hour.

Is there a way that I can get rid of my HD problems? Should I consider
exchanging my hard disk and controller for SCSI? Do I have something
wrong with gcc (that's giving me the tools/build.c errors)? Should I
try to download the source from a different site (is the one at tsx-11
"sane")?

===================================================================
                 Alan Porter (big@catt.ncsu.edu)
         address: 104-A Darlena Court, Cary NC 27511 USA
     home phone: (919) 481-4255 work phone: (919) 481-8161
==================================================================