[rescue] tape drive with no SCSI

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 11:54:11PM -0600, Phil Brutsche wrote:
> On Wed, 2001-11-07 at 23:30, Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> > > Use "time hdparm -t" or whatever the test flag is.
> > 
> > Hmm.  Seems I don't have an hdparm command installed.  I'll have to look 
> > into this.  
> 
> It's /usr/sbin/hdparm under Debian.

The problem was the package wasn't installed.
 
> 	hdparm -d1 -X66 <device>
> 
> where <device> is your hard drive.

I might try that.  The man page says it's dangerous though.  How 
dangerous?  It might crash, or it might scramble the disk, or destroy the 
disk?  Are these posibilities?  I'm looking through the man pages for how 
to get info on what drive type it thinks it's working with.
 
> It will speed things up tremendously, provided you have a ATA33 or
> better hard drive installed and the drive is the only device on the
> chain (if it's not the only device on the chain then all bets are off).

I just realized that one of the drives is hdc, and the other hdd. That 
makes me think that I did something stupid and put both drives on the same 
chain.  What was I thinking?  I'll have to fix that next time I open the 
case.
 
> If you're using a 2.4.x kernel (or a 2.2 kernel with Andre Hedrick's IDE
> patches) that won't be necessary.

I'm using 2.4.13.  It is a lot faster than 2.4.5 was when I run the memory 
low.  I think the new VM is a major improvement.  
 
> > This sort of thing really hits my buttons about linux (and perhaps any 
> > unixish OS I suppose).
> 
> I've had to do similar things to FreeBSD, NetBSD and Windows.  Unless
> you configure the kernel to use the bus master IDE drivers for your IDE
> chipset IDE will always be slow.

Sigh.  I'd consider moving the machine to all scsi, but I haven't been 
imressed with the performance of my sisters nearly all SCSI (one 
IDE CDRom) system.  A 430tx mobo, adaptec 2440, or whatever the common 
bootable PCI controller was from that company.  Better to just wait till I 
can afford a real machine (Symbolics XL1200, I'm waiting for thee).
 
> Just about the only OS/hardware combo that doesn't have that issue is
> MacOS :(

Anyone care to comment on OSX at this moment?

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd