>>>>> "Eric" == Eric S Hvozda <ack@clark.net> writes:

    Eric> Note this is not a gripe or flame.  It is a statement of a
    Eric> way to start attacking the wd.c problem in -current.  NetBSD
    Eric> is a great thing (tm) and I'm thankful I had something to
    Eric> leave Linux for...

    Eric> Dirk Steinberg sez:
    >>  I just want to make other people with IDE drives aware of the
    >> problem so they know what to look after; maybe *someone* can
    >> narrow this bug down and supply a fix.

    Eric> Indeed, we need to start tracking this kind of thing for
    Eric> wd.c.  Perhaps we should start with a list of people who
    Eric> have IDE disks working under 0.9 and current and what the
    Eric> configuration is (who made the disk, where does everything
    Eric> live?  root on the IDE?  what about swap? etc...)

    Eric> If we can identify which disks and configurations work and
    Eric> don't work, perhaps a basic set of instances can be
    Eric> established for us to start attacking this problem from.

	[...]

    Eric> Now I'm willing to keep a database of all people with IDE
    Eric> disks who send me mail and describe what they have.

OK, here we go:

386DX/40, 256K cache, VLB, 16 MB RAM

AT controller (haha):	el cheapo Taiwan (not VLB)

IDE disk:		Quantum LPS 240 AT (only drive)

3 partitions of 80 MB each. First partition is Linux, second is NetBSD
/usr/src, third is NetBSD root and swap. I never saw the problem on
0.9, but I only used it for a short time (I seem to remember that I
had some lockups, though). On -current (Jan/Feb) it happened to me
three times: the first 2 times it trashed /usr/src, which I could
restore rather easily, the third time it junked the root partition.
Have not tried since then.

I also used a hacked wd.c from 0.9 for some time in -current, and if I
remember correctly, I only had lockups but no corruption with that
driver. So this might be a potential workaround (I rather have some
lockups than total disk corruption), and also a good starting place.

	Dirk

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Dirk W. Steinberg - RWTH Aachen - Internet email: steinber@ert.rwth-aachen.de
Aachen University of Technology / IS2-Integrated Systems in Signal Processing
Rhein.Westf.Tech.Hochsch. Aachen / Integrierte Systeme der Signalverarbeitung
Templergraben 55 / D-52056 Aachen / phone:+49 241 807879 / fax:+49 241 807631
Home address: Kleikstr. 63, D-52134 Herzogenrath,Germany/phone: +49 2406 7225

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