I've recently been getting some "soft error (corrected)" stuff in my
/var/log/messages.  Unfortunately, the system hasn't been stable enough
for me to be able to copy the entire disk to my spiffy new DAT drive
(which I bought just for this purpose).  After an hour or so, I get a
blank screen, follow by a reboot.  When the system comes back up, I get
this in my /var/log/messages: "panic: pmap_enter: vm_fault failed ".  I
made several attempts at making this backup before it occured to me that
perhaps vm_fault isn't as graceful when getting soft errors from the
drive...?  I am now trying to make this backup again without using the
swap partition that I have on the flaky drive.  I am running a -current
kernel, but I had the same problem with a much earlier -current that I've
used without problems before. 

I've gotten this particular panic before talking to the DAT drive, so I
don't think it's a SCSI related thing.  After one of my panics, I ran a
memory test program (many, many, times) while copying large files (under
AmigaOS).  There were no errors detected, so I tend to think the flaky
drive is the culprit rather than bad ram or other such fun things. 

Anyway, how does "vm_fault" respond to a SCSI "soft error"?

-------- Henric Jungheim  -------------------  henric@zoom.com --------