WRITE_DMA UDMA CRC error on Nimble v5

Wesha the Leopard weshasmail at cmtk.net
Sun Oct 16 16:13:27 PDT 2005


Dear colleagues,

I would really appreciate some help here. I've tried every option I
was able to think of, to no avail.

My server is built on Nimble v5
(http://www.nimblev5.com/product/specification.htm). This is a
wonderful little box built on VIA C3 Eden 733MHz, quiet and
consuming very little electricity (meaning longer UPS runtimes).
I'm running FreeBSD 5.3 on it, and everything was fine until I
tried to upgrade.

Originally, the box sports 2.5" Fujitsu MHT2030AT hard drive. FreeBSD
reports it as UDMA-100, and it works like a charm. I'm trying to
replace in with Toshiba MK6025GAS 60Gb 2.5" laptop hard drive, and try
to install FreeBSD 5.4 on it. However, no matter how hard I try,
I always run into the same problem:

ad0: WARNING - WRITE_DMA UDMA ICRC (retrying request) LBA=63
ad0: WARNING - WRITE_DMA UDMA ICRC (retrying request) LBA=63
ad0: WARNING - WRITE_DMA UDMA ICRC (retrying request) LBA=63
ad0: FAILURE - status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR> error=84<CRC,ABORTED> LBA=63

This error repeats many times.

Here's the steps that I've tried to make:

1) Googled that UltraDMA (80-pin) cable should be used to avoid these
errors. This doesn't help -- to my knowledge, there's no 80-pin ribbon
cables for 2.5" hard drives, at least nobody sells any. And after all,
the original 20Gb drive has no problems with the existing cable,
though it's UDMA100 as well.

2) This box is pretty limited in choice of external storage devices I
can use -- basicly, all I can connect to it is USB stuff. I googled
a suggestion that that error might show up on VIA chipsets when
installing from USB CD-ROM. Tried installing from USB floppy and over
the network -- same thing.

3) Upgraded BIOS to the latest one. No effect.

4) Tried different Nimble box (I've got 2). Same thing.

5) Thought it might be the Toshiba drive. Tried with 2.5" 100Gb
Seagate. Same thing.

6) Tried 6.0RC1. Same thing. Tried 5.3 (the one that works OK on the
original 20Gb drive), same thing.

7) Put the 60Gb drive into a USB enclosure and installed onto it.
Worked fine, but when I get the drive out of the enclosure and into the
box, the error happens again.

Here's the table of what I tried:

---------------------------------------------------------------
Freebsd Installation Target        Target    Result
version medium       drive         interface

5.3     USB-FDD      Fujitsu 20GB  IDE       OK

5.3     USB-CD       ---           ---       Install disk boot 
                                             stalls -- "image
                                             corrupt"

5.4     USB-FDD      Toshiba 60GB  IDE       ICRC error

5.4     USB-CD       Toshiba 60GB  IDE       ICRC error

5.4     USB-CD       Seagate 100GB IDE       ICRC error

6.0RC1  USB-FDD      Toshiba 60GB  IDE       ICRC error

5.4     USB-FDD      Toshiba 60GB  USB       OK

5.4     USB-CD       Toshiba 60GB  USB       OK

5.4     any          Toshiba 60GB  USB->IDE  OK, then ICRC 
                                             error on boot
---------------------------------------------------------------

Any sugggestions?
                                             
-- 
Best regards,
 Wesha                          mailto:weshasmail at cmtk.net



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