WRITE_DMA problem again

arax cezar at arax.md
Fri Apr 22 02:10:45 PDT 2005


Hello,

> arax writes:

>> I was just wondering if there's a solution to fix the WRITE_DMA problem. I've
>> searched the archives but couldn't find a complete answer to this,
>> like why it's happening and what to do about it. I'd appreciate any help.

> I had the same problem (same logical device, in fact, and also on
> FreeBSD 5.3) and it turned out to be a bad drive. I was able to verify
> this by downloading the vendor's standalone test software, booting it on
> the server, and running exhaustive tests against the drive. On the full
> test, the software hung (whereas it worked fine on the other, identical
> drive that I had configured on the system). Since this was a bootable
> disk and FreeBSD wasn't even in the system, this ruled out FreeBSD. I
> reluctantly replaced the drive (which was only 60 days old or so) with
> an identical model, and I've had no problems since.

Oh, no. Hope that's not true. I jsut finished installing and configure
all the software, it would be a big pain starting over again. So, as
far as I get it, there isn't a definite answer to this issue. You're
suggesting that it's the drive, I saw some threads in the archives
suggesting to apply some patches but they are still under development.
I saw a lot of complaints regarding this write_dma thing, is it
possible that all those people have problems with drives? Who knows?
Maybe.
I also remember that some time ago I got into a page, probably at
people.freebsd.org where one of the developers stated that there is a
problem with ata driver regarding dma on freebsd. It was said there
that the workaround is in progress. Unfortunately I forgot where I saw
this and can't find it again.

I would appreciate any suggestions regarding a workaround of this
problem, or at least a confirmation if it is critical or it may be
safely ignored.

Thanks.


-- 
Regards,
Cezar




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