Extremely slow disk access after 2009.1 update

[darrell]

After a relatively painless update from Powerpak 2009.0 to 2009.1, my system is now having disk access problems. The main 500G SATA drive that I have the kernel and user directories on is fine. All programs appear to work normally. But, my second 300G drive now has access issues on all partitions. The problem seems to be access speed and not file corruption and it occured as a result of the upgrade.

 

Debugging Attempt -- I have X-plane installed on one of the partitions on the (now slow) 300G drive. It didn't seem to start after the update but it didn't crash either. So, to make sure it wasn't the NVIDIA driver I left it to go through the startup sequence and, after abour 2 1/2 hours (no, I am not exaggerating) it did start and run. During initialization it usually flies through reading the setup files but right now I can watch each go by very slowly. Thinking there was a problem with the installation I attempted to install the X-plane demo on the other partition on the 300G drive but killed it after it took a couple minutes just to scan and unzip 90 files which would normally be near instantaneous. I ran 'top' in the terminal and don't see any process hogging CPU cycles. It's more like there is a just some sort of serious wait or delay going on.

 

I guess I am lucky that the only thing on the 300G drive is X-plane. Had my primary disk had this issue the system wouldn't be useable.

 

I did scan through the forums and didn't happen to see anything like this. I am relatively confident that this is not a hardware problem as the drive worked fine prior to updating to 2009.1. But, I am not sure how to go about isolating this problem either.

 

Any guidance to help work this problem would be much appreciated.

[theYinYeti]

Welcome :)

 

No idea about your problem, so… What are the filesystems and the layout? You could for example post the output of “df -h†and “mount†(as root).

 

Yves.

[ianw1974]

Also, please post contents of /etc/fstab, so we can see if there's any obvious differences here?

[darrell]

Thanks for your valuable time and the help!

 

Here are some outputs relating to the disks. Could it have something to do with the fact that the problem disk is a parallel ATA whereas the primary disk is SATA? Of course, the weird thing is that it worked right before the update yesterday.

 

/dev/sdb6 is the partition where I have X-plane. /dev/sdb5 is where I tried installing the demo version and also experienced very slow access. Everything on /dev/sda appears to be normal although I notice it now takes "forever" (meaning 3 or 4 minutes) to shut down. I've attributed this to the system trying to access the problem drive but that's just a guess.

 

[darrell@beeker ~]$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1             289G   12G  263G   5% /
/dev/sda6             161G  1.7G  159G   2% /home
/dev/sdb6             146G   73G   66G  53% /home/drive2
pluto:/home/public/shared_folders       144G   59G   78G  44% /home/shared
/dev/sr1              1.4G  1.4G     0 100% /media/cdrom
/dev/sdb5             145G  188M  145G   1% /media/disk


[darrell@beeker ~]$ mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext3 (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdb6 on /home/drive2 type ext3 (rw,relatime)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
pluto:/home/public/shared_folders on /home/shared type nfs (rw,addr=192.168.1.110)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
/dev/sr1 on /media/cdrom type udf (ro,nosuid,nodev,users,umask=0,iocharset=utf8)
/dev/sdb5 on /media/disk type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal)


[darrell@beeker ~]$ fstab
# Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=f5ce142c-72f9-468d-9707-fe87a4710db7 / ext3 relatime 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sda6 :
UUID=662e5000-3b0e-42f2-9ab9-127de1be1785 /home ext3 relatime 1 2
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto umask=0,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto umask=0,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,exec,flush 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/hdf1 :
UUID=457f6838-c404-4caa-b9d3-2401ab447183 swap swap defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=16fda530-a358-44e7-9bfc-8ab4985262ed swap swap defaults 0 0
# Entry for the first partition on the 300G parallal ATA drive
UUID=34a77076-5625-4c44-88e8-4a8314512132 /home/drive2 ext3 relatime 1 2
# NFS mount to file server
pluto:/home/public/shared_folders	/home/shared	nfs	rw	0 0

[tux99]

can you also post the output of

 

cat /proc/interrupts

 

and of

 

grep sd /var/log/messages|grep kernel

 

(you need to run the last one as root)

[darrell]

More information to help the cause.

 

[darrell@beeker ~]$ [b]cat /proc/interrupts[/b]
          CPU0       CPU1       
 0:        384        148   IO-APIC-edge      timer
 1:       5558       5562   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
 4:          1          1   IO-APIC-edge    
 6:          2          3   IO-APIC-edge      floppy
 7:          0          0   IO-APIC-edge      parport0
 8:          0          1   IO-APIC-edge      rtc0
 9:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
14:     123634     123968   IO-APIC-edge      ata_piix
15:          0          0   IO-APIC-edge      ata_piix
16:     280023     279535   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb3, nvidia
18:     118705     118930   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb5, uhci_hcd:usb8
19:     188003     187985   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ata_piix, pata_jmicron, uhci_hcd:usb7
20:     100015      99986   IO-APIC-fasteoi   pata_hpt3x2n
21:     187010     187504   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb4
22:      98047      97885   IO-APIC-fasteoi   HDA Intel
23:         35         26   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ohci1394, ehci_hcd:usb2, uhci_hcd:usb6
29:          0          0   PCI-MSI-edge      eth0
30:     217866     217530   PCI-MSI-edge      eth1
NMI:          0          0   Non-maskable interrupts
LOC:    9082670    9835517   Local timer interrupts
RES:     973769     908292   Rescheduling interrupts
CAL:      48243      36448   Function call interrupts
TLB:      86167      84765   TLB shootdowns
TRM:          0          0   Thermal event interrupts
THR:          0          0   Threshold APIC interrupts
SPU:          0          0   Spurious interrupts
ERR:          0
MIS:          0

[root@beeker ~]$ [b]grep sd /var/log/messages|grep kernel[/b]
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 976771055 512-byte hardware sectors (500107 MB)
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 976771055 512-byte hardware sectors (500107 MB)
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel:  sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 >
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: EXT3-fs: sda1: orphan cleanup on readonly fs
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: EXT3-fs: sda1: 1 orphan inode deleted
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: EXT3 FS on sda1, internal journal
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: EXT3 FS on sda6, internal journal
May  3 14:26:35 beeker kernel: Adding 10233364k swap on /dev/sda5.  Priority:-2 extents:1 across:10233364k
May  3 14:26:46 beeker kernel: Installing knfsd (copyright © 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 976771055 512-byte hardware sectors (500107 MB)
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 976771055 512-byte hardware sectors (500107 MB)
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel:  sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 >
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: EXT3-fs: sda1: orphan cleanup on readonly fs
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: EXT3-fs: sda1: 31 orphan inodes deleted
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: EXT3 FS on sda1, internal journal
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: EXT3 FS on sda6, internal journal
May  3 14:39:39 beeker kernel: Adding 10233364k swap on /dev/sda5.  Priority:-2 extents:1 across:10233364k
May  3 14:39:52 beeker kernel: Installing knfsd (copyright © 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
May  3 15:12:41 beeker kernel: nfsd: last server has exited, flushing export cache
May  3 15:26:02 beeker kernel: nfsd: last server has exited, flushing export cache

[darrell]

After more playing, it would appear that some sort of file marking or cataloging might be happening here. Maybe some new level of security went into place???

 

Yesterday, it took several hours to launch X-plane. Today, I tried again and this time it went as normal. My theory here is that the files got "marked" the last time so don't have to undergo that process again. To corroborate this I selected a new airplane that hadn't been loaded yet. As expected, it took a long time but eventually launched and ran fine. Exiting and then restarting it then ran OK presumably because it had been marked now. Picking yet another aircraft that hadn't been used, once again it took a long time to launch but then ran normally.

 

So ... it really looks like when a file is accessed for the first time, it gets marked or checked or something that takes a long time (relatively speaking). Maybe this is expected behavior? If so, I hope there is some way to force the process to run on the entire drive (now) so that it doesn't have to be run again.

 

Does any of this make sense???

[demonseth17]

have you tried to mount that 300G on another mountpoint....sometimes when mandriva does mount a USB drive or a partition...and the access to those USBs or partitions are slow...I mount it on a folder I want... ;)

[tux99]

While there are no errors in the /var/log/messages output you posted, I find it weird that there are no entries for the initialisation of sdb in there, that looks very unusual to me.

Doea a 'zgrep sdb /var/log/messages*' give you any output at all?

 

The /proc/interrupts output doesn't show anything obviously wrong to me.

 

msec does periodical fs scans and anacron can launch cron jobs (for example a rebuild of locatedb) that you missed when the PC was shutdown, shortly after you boot it up.

Can you maybe also post the output of 'ps aux' run during one of the moments when the problem appears?

Edited May 5, 2009 by tux99

[pmpatrick]

Could it have something to do with the fact that the problem disk is a parallel ATA whereas the primary disk is SATA?

Absolutely. Post your IDE controller chipset if you know it. If not, post the output of:

 

$ lspci

 

You can also get a good idea of the hard drive performance of sdb by running as root:

 

# hdparm -t /dev/sdb

 

Post your hdparm output as well.

 

I suspect there may be a kernel issue with libata and your ide controller. I've seen these symptoms on Promise Ultra IDE controller cards and others. It's a kernel issue with libata and some older IDE controller chipsets.

[darrell]

The motherboard is a Gigabyte P45T-DS3R with an Intel 3GHz Core 3 Duo processor but I had to install an IDE controller card for this ATA drive. It is a HighPoint Rocket 133SB 32bits, 33/66 MHz PCI IDE Controller Card. I don't know what the controller chip is but I bought this card especially because it supported Linux right out of the box. Didn't need to install any drivers or anything.

 

Now this was interesting. The transfer rate is 1000x slower for the ATA drive (/dev/sdb) compared to the SATA drive (/dev/sda). Wow! It certainly does look like some sort of controller issue like pmpatrick is suspecting.

[root@beeker darrell]# hdparm -t /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
Timing buffered disk reads:    2 MB in 26.91 seconds =  76.10 kB/sec
/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads:  270 MB in  3.01 seconds =  89.83 MB/sec

 

Here are some of the other outputs that are apparently useful to you experts:

[root@beeker darrell]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset DRAM Controller (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 1
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 4
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 5
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 6
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 4 port SATA IDE Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 9800 GTX (rev a2)
03:00.0 IDE interface: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMB368 IDE controller
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
06:00.0 RAID bus controller: HighPoint Technologies, Inc. HPT302/302N (rev 02)
06:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)

 

And this has a bunch of I/O errors. Perhaps causing the very slow transfer rate?

[root@beeker darrell]# zgrep sdb /var/log/messages*
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd:  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 < sdb5 sdb6 >
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor]
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Scsi parity error
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 469795071
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203464
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203465
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203466
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203467
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: EXT3 FS on sdb6, internal journal
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:23:11 beeker klogd: Adding 4088500k swap on /dev/sdb1.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:4088500k 
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:47:20 beeker hald: mounted /dev/sdb5 on behalf of uid 500
/var/log/messages:May  3 16:47:20 beeker klogd: EXT3 FS on sdb5, internal journal
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd:  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 < sdb5 sdb6 >
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor]
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Scsi parity error
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 469795071
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203464
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203465
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203466
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203467
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: EXT3 FS on sdb6, internal journal
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:29:54 beeker klogd: Adding 4088500k swap on /dev/sdb1.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:4088500k 
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:30:37 beeker hald: mounted /dev/sdb5 on behalf of uid 500
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:30:37 beeker klogd: EXT3 FS on sdb5, internal journal
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:38:31 beeker hald: unmounted /dev/sdb5 from '/media/disk' on behalf of uid 500
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors (320073 MB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors (320073 MB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd:  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 < sdb5 sdb6 >
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor]
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Scsi parity error
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 469795071
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203464
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203465
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203466
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203467
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors (320073 MB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors (320073 MB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors (320073 MB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: EXT3 FS on sdb6, internal journal
/var/log/messages:May  3 12:49:00 beeker klogd: Adding 4088500k swap on /dev/sdb1.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:4088500k
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd:  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 < sdb5 sdb6 >
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor]
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Scsi parity error
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 469795071
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203464
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203465
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203466
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203467
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte hardware sectors: (320 GB/298 GiB)
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: sd 5:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: EXT3 FS on sdb6, internal journal
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: Adding 4088500k swap on /dev/sdb1.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:4088500k 
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:57:28 beeker klogd: EXT3 FS on sdb5, internal journal
/var/log/messages:May  3 17:57:28 beeker hald: mounted /dev/sdb5 on behalf of uid 500
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:40:15 beeker harddrake2[25398]: HDIO_GETGEO on /dev/sdb succeeded: heads=255 sectors=63 cylinders=38913 start=4294967295
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:40:15 beeker harddrake2[25398]: id2hd: 0x00059782=>sdb 0x00084815=>sda
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:40:15 beeker harddrake2[25398]: geometry_from_edd sdb 0x00059782: 38913/255/63
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:40:16 beeker harddrake2[25398]: test_for_bad_drives(/dev/sdb on sector #62)
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:42:00 beeker harddrake2[25398]: running: vol_id /dev/sdb
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:42:00 beeker harddrake2[25398]: running: vol_id /dev/sdb
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:42:00 beeker harddrake2[25398]: found a dos partition table on /dev/sdb at sector 0
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:42:00 beeker harddrake2[25398]: guess_geometry_from_partition_table sdb: 38913/255/63
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:42:00 beeker harddrake2[25398]: running: vol_id /dev/sdb1
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:42:00 beeker harddrake2[25398]: running: vol_id /dev/sdb5
/var/log/messages:May  3 22:42:02 beeker harddrake2[25398]: running: vol_id /dev/sdb6
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 3999743 512-byte hardware sectors (2048 MB)
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 3999743 512-byte hardware sectors (2048 MB)
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker kernel:  sdb: sdb1 sdb2
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:17:02 beeker hald: mounted /dev/sdb2 on behalf of uid 500
/var/log/messages.1.gz:May  2 11:25:08 beeker hald: unmounted /dev/sdb2 from '/media/DARRELL BAR' on behalf of uid 500

[tux99]

I think pmpatrick is right, those errors

 

/var/log/messages:May 3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: Buffer I/O error on device sdb6, logical block 77203464
/var/log/messages:May 3 17:51:01 beeker klogd: lost page write due to I/O error on sdb6

 

look like a kernel driver / libata issue and are very likely the cause of your issues.

 

I noticed your mobo has an onboard IDE connector, can you not connect the sdb disk there, or is it already in use for something else?

If it's already in use for your DVD drive, you could still connect it there dasy-chained (master/slave), while it's not ideal to have a DVD drive and a HDD on the same cable, it will still be much faster than the current situation.

 

Or you could buy an IDE<>SATA converter (dirt cheap on ebay) to plug sdb in one of the onboard SATA ports, something like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IDE-TO-SATA-100-133-...emZ220290745525

 

You might also want to report this as a bug to Mandriva: http://qa.mandriva.com

although given the issue, I doubt it will be fixed quickly, so you will still need one of the above workarounds.

Edited May 6, 2009 by tux99

[pmpatrick]

There's not much you can do about it other than use another kernel or change your hardware. You say your system was OK in mdv2009. I would try installing and using the most recent working mdv2009 kernel; it should work fine in mdv2009.1. Or you can wait for a kernel update which may fix your problem. I can tell you that with my Promise Ultra 100 controller I've been waiting for nearly two years and libata has yet to be fixed to use this device properly. There's not much incentive to get this old hardware working in libata, particularly since the device will work fine even in the newer kernels if the kernel is compiled with legacy ide support enabled. When that's the case, ide devices will be designated hdx instead of sdx which indicates that libata is not being used for that device. The last mandriva release to do that was mdv 2008.1. With you controller card, it worked in fairly recent kernels so the aberrant behavior in the 2.6.29 kernel used in mdv2009.1 is obviously a regression which may be fixed in an subsequent kernel. Alsa is pretty messed up for intel sound in the 2.6.29 kernel as well so I suspect a kernel update in mdv2009.1 may come out fairly soon to address some of these issues.

[darrell]

Thanks to everyone for helping with this.

 

The problem does seem to be rooted with my HighPoint 133SB IDE card and it not being supported properly by the 2.6.29.1 kernel. My solution was an IDE to SATA converter as suggested by tux99. It was totally transparent and I didn't even have to edit the fstab file.

 

Now I've got USB issues but that's another matter ...