A more complete log about my disk access errors

[Kirk Wood]

First, understand why Windows 2000 doesn't complain about the DMA. If the
drive times out twice (ever) then it no longer uses DMA ever. So it won't
complain. It won't tell you. In fact, win winclows 98 they burried any
indication that this had happened. It happens more often them many people
realize.

Having said that, if you didn't have DMA support compiled into the kernel
you wouldn't get the errors. Yes, it must be compiled in if it is to be
used. (DMA falls back to PIO in case of failure and PIO always remains
available.)

As for fixing this, it is either the motherboard or the drive. I know that
doesn't help. You might check to see that DMA is turned on in the
BIOS. (Linux will try anyway, winblows just acts like it is using DMA and
doesn't really.) Otherwise try another DMA drive and see if the problem
resolves.

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Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk at 1tree.net

Nothing is hard if you know the answer or are used to doing it.