🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1994Nov1.231848.22798@muffin.pronet.com> cas@muffin.pronet.com writes:
<I just got a brand new (only a few weeks old) WD Caviar 540 to replace
<my ancient Maxtor SCSI drive which finally died.  Does anyone know
<whether enabling multimode will benefit me or not?

Yeah, it will.  Just set it to 2 or 4, though, not 16.

<2.  hdparm -t crashes?
<
<When I first installed hdparm, I enabled 16 sector multimode, then ran
<"hdparm -t" whilst compiling a new version of the kernel in another VC.
<I didn't expect any meaningful results (because of the disk thrashing
<caused by the compile) but I also certainly didn't expect the system to
<lock up.  All disk activity ceased, but I was still able to switch
<consoles.  Couldn't do anything so eventually had to press the reset
<button.

I noticed something similar with older kernels (I'm using 1.1.61 right now)
back around 1.0.9 and the early 1.1.x series.  Seems to have gone away now.
It looked very much like a bug somewhere in the buffer management code.
-- 
mlord@bnr.ca	Mark Lord	BNR Ottawa,Canada	613-763-7482