Originally Posted By: Roger
Originally Posted By: mlord
New notebook drives often have various levels of "power saving" set ON by default. You might be able to check for that with "hdparm -B /dev/sda", and modify it (OFF) with "hdparm -B255 /dev/sda"


Good tip. I'll try that later this evening.


hdparm v9.8 doesn't query the power saving setting with hdparm -B /dev/hda; it reports:

Code:
empeg:/drive0/bin# ./hdparm -V
hdparm v9.8
empeg:/drive0/bin# ./hdparm -B /dev/hda
  -B: bad/missing power-management-mode value (1..255)


It appears that it's disabled anyway ("AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255)"):

Code:
empeg:/drive0/bin# ./hdparm -i /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Model=SAMSUNG HM160HC, FwRev=LQ100-10, SerialNo=S12TJDQZ936826
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=34902, SectSize=554, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=312581808
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5
 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0:  ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

 * signifies the current active mode


I'll leave it playing and capture a serial trace...
_________________________
-- roger