I just spent an inordinate amount of time sifting through 80MB or so
of linux-activists archives, after someone suggested to me that there
was a hardware problem with the Maxtor 7213A drives discussed there.

Well, there is.  Apparently older drives have broken firmware that
causes problems with just about ever system except DOS.  Specifically,
drives with a `PCBA' level of less than 65 are likely to have this
problem.  You can find the revision number by looking at the label on
the top of the disk.

If you have an old 7213A drive (note this is the IDE version, not the
7213S, which is SCSI), please call Maxtor and talk with them about
getting a firmware and/or drive replacement.  Their phone number is
408-432-1700.


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