Preclear input/output error

Hi all,

 

Just got a new 4tb hard drive.  Running latest v5 rc.  When I go to preclear, I get this message "Sorry: Device /dev/hda is not responding to an fdisk -l /dev/hda command.

You might try power-cycling it to see if it will start responding"  I tried powering down the tower and rebooting with no luck.  I was able to preclear an identical drive just a couple of days ago.  Is this one DOA?  has anyone else had this problem?

Hi all,

 

Just got a new 4tb hard drive.  Running latest v5 rc.  When I go to preclear, I get this message "Sorry: Device /dev/hda is not responding to an fdisk -l /dev/hda command.

You might try power-cycling it to see if it will start responding"  I tried powering down the tower and rebooting with no luck.  I was able to preclear an identical drive just a couple of days ago.  Is this one DOA?  has anyone else had this problem?

Sounds like either it is dead, or a cable to it loose.  (some disks had buggy firmware and would lock up, stop responding on errors, and respond again when power cycled... unfortunately, that is not the issue with yours)

"Sorry: Device /dev/hda is not responding to an fdisk -l /dev/hda command.

Unless you have a really odd drive,  there were no IDE 4TB drives ever produced.  (It must be an SATA drive)

For it to show as /dev/hda would indicate your disk controller is configured in IDE emulation mode.  You should configure it correctly in AHCI mode, otherwise, it accessing it will be VERY SLOW.  It should show as /dev/sdX, not /dev/hdX

 

Joe L.

"Sorry: Device /dev/hda is not responding to an fdisk -l /dev/hda command.

Unless you have a really odd drive,  there were no IDE 4TB drives ever produced.  (It must be an SATA drive)

For it to show as /dev/hda would indicate your disk controller is configured in IDE emulation mode.  You should configure it correctly in AHCI mode, otherwise, it accessing it will be VERY SLOW.  It should show as /dev/sdX, not /dev/hdX

 

Joe L.

 

That is interesting.  Yes it is a sata drive.  I am using the ports on the motherboard currently.  I take it this is something I should consider looking at in the bios before returning this drive?  My other drives are sdX, except for my SSD cache drive, it is listed hdX......

"Sorry: Device /dev/hda is not responding to an fdisk -l /dev/hda command.

Unless you have a really odd drive,  there were no IDE 4TB drives ever produced.  (It must be an SATA drive)

For it to show as /dev/hda would indicate your disk controller is configured in IDE emulation mode.  You should configure it correctly in AHCI mode, otherwise, it accessing it will be VERY SLOW.  It should show as /dev/sdX, not /dev/hdX

 

Joe L.

 

That is interesting.  Yes it is a sata drive.  I am using the ports on the motherboard currently.  I take it this is something I should consider looking at in the bios before returning this drive?

It would not keep the drive from responding, but it is not configured properly in the BIOS.

Often the BIOS default is a legacy IDE mode, since Windows XP and prior had NO SATA drivers, and if XP was used with that MB, it would not see the drive unless the disk controller was in a legacy (slow) IDE disk emulation mode.

A couple of thoughts ...

 

(a)  If you're seeing some drives as SDx and others as HDx, but all are connected to motherboard ports;  you must have two different SATA controllers on the motherboard (not uncommon).    You need to check both of them in the BIOS, to be sure you configure them for AHCI.

 

(b)  While it's indeed "better" to run in native SATA mode [primarily for "elevator seeking"),  running in IDE emulation does NOT cause accesses to be "VERY SLOW"  ==> in fact they'll be at the same exact speed as with AHCI ... no difference in seek times;  no difference in transfer rate; etc.    The primary differences are that AHCI supports "hot swap"; and provides native command queueing ("elevator seeks"), which is much more efficient in multi-tasking environments.

 

What DOES cause a drive to be VERY SLOW is if the access mode switches from DMA to PIO (programmed I/O) 

Also look for and disable setting "SATA Combined Mode".  This can cause some SATA controllers to run some ports in IDE emulation mode.

Thanks all.  Got a new hard drive coming and also changed the mobo settings.  Running much better now