Re: Is it the hardware or the OS?

[Adam Williams <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>So, I log on to the Linux machine, su to root and start poking around.
>Output from 'ps ax | grep mbd' looks something like:
>725 ?     S     0:00 nmbd
>726 ?     D     0:01 smbd -l /var/log/samba -s /etc/smb.conf
>728 ?     D     0:01 smbd -l /var/log/samba -s /etc/smb.conf
>729 ?     S     0:01 smbd -l /var/log/samba -s /etc/smb.conf
>734 ?     S     0:01 smbd -l /var/log/samba -s /etc/smb.conf
>735 ?     D     0:01 smbd -l /var/log/samba -s /etc/smb.conf
>799 pts/0 S     0:00 grep mbd
>Well, it looks something like that, this is the best I could fudge from
>memory.  I was able to kill all the sleeping processes, but couldn't get
>the uninterruptable processes to budge using signal -9.  (I don't really
>know what I'm doing anyway)

You can't kill a "D" process.  It means that the process is hung in a 
system call, usually due to a hardware problem, or less likely to a 
kernel bug.

>ide1: reset timed out, status=0x80
>hdc: status timeout: status=0x80 { Busy }
>hdc: drive not ready for command
>Ok, so this isn't looking good.  

No, its not.

>the autodetection of the drives, all (one) IDE0 devices can be found,
>but nothing (two devices) is found on IDE1.  (Note: Autodetection was
>turned off the very first time this happened, the drives were "manually"
>configured). IDE0 is a Maxtor HDD, IDE1 has the same make and model of

Hmmm, a Maxtor drive?  Am I noticing a trend on this mailling list 
lately?

>I'm worried there may be an underlying problem and this may happen with
>more frequency.  I can't seem to find any problems with the drive
>causing the problem and I suspect it's my motherboard (IDE1 controller)
>but can't find a way to confirm that.
>Has anybody experienced anything similar?  

Yes, many times, those exact error messages. Is this system a Compaq?  

>Or have an idea what's going
>on here?  I have a Windows98 machine connected to the Linux box

What IDE controller does it have?  Look in "dmesg".  Any reported bugs 
for that controller? (search from www.google.com).  Have you messed about 
with hdparm?

>(application/file server if you will).  I've had this problem
>intermittently for the last year, but it hasn't become serious enough
>(yes, I'm lazy) until this past month.

So it is becoming more frequent?   
Cheap hardware is usually cheap, as in cheap other than inexpensive.