laptop hdd issues with linux ?

[M4rc0]

Ok, I enabled laptop-mode and applied the Suse patch, and nothing, things are still the same. If I manually set hdparm to 254 the issue disappears, but the fix is not working for me... Has anyone got this solved in F10?

MuadNu, Try disabling laptop-mode.

This laptop-mode seems controversial, I got clicks when i had it on and on my batery, but after disabling the suse patch was working again. So maybe it could be the same for you?

I think laptop-mode might be more usefull for older (not thaaat old) laptops, like our friend premudriy reported above.

Try disabling laptop-mode and make sure that the patch is correctly done, since you said manually setting hdparm works, i think the patch should also work.

Good luck man! And thanks for reporting. I think if it doesn't work for you then I'm staying with F9 for a longer time.

[MuadNu]

M4rc0, I first tried without laptop-mode. I'll check later if there's anything wrong with my fix. But this is really annoying, and I'm not sure yet why this hasn't been addressed officially (as it seems, neither in Fedora nor in any other distro).

[MuadNu]

M4rc0, you were right, there was a typo in one of the scripts I added for the Suse fix. Fixing that, plus removing laptop-mode, fixed it for me. I'm not sure about what will happen after suspending/hibernating, which has given me trouble in the past, I'll try it later (now I should get back to work ).

[pedromatiello]

I am using hdparm -B 254 in my F10. Seems to be fine.

[tkalfaoglu]

Any ideas why laptop_mode is missing in FC10 ?

[premudriy]

I've installed F10 on my laptop and can additionally confirm that this issue still exists.


MuadNu:

I've put the line disabling the hdd spin down completely in my /etc/rc.local:

hdparm -q -B 255 /dev/sda

The "-q" switch makes command to run "quietly" and it's optional. I've used it so I don't get any output during boot. You still won't see hdparm output during boot unless you hit "Esc" key.

My hard drive doesn't overheat with "255" value, which might not be the case for other people.


P.S.: And still, this is not a "real solution" to this problem. Solution must be built-in to Fedora or any other distro because it's quite serious. No one wants to throw away a hard drive after 1-2 years of use.

I wonder if anything is being done about this problem by the Fedora developers. Does anyone know? Any official Fedora dev. bulletin boards that this issue is being talked about besides this thread?

[observer]

Do desktops have this problem?
Mi pc doesn't even show the Load_Cycle_Count in any drive

[EFakles]

Do desktops have this problem?
Mi pc doesn't even show the Load_Cycle_Count in any drive

No, Desktop HDDs don't have this entry (Load_Cycle_Count). It's a feature of Notebook HDDs for Powersaving reasons.

I tried also the laptop-mode tools on FC10 and my Notebook. The Laptop Mode gets activated when going on battery power. But hdparm settings in the laptop-mode.conf file are ignored.

So I use another fix. In "/etc/pm/{config.d,power.d,sleep.d}" I place a file called "99-hdd-spin-fix.sh" with the content

#!/bin/bash
AC_POWER=$( /usr/bin/on_ac_power; echo $? )
if [ $AC_POWER -eq 1 ] ; then
      hdparm -B 200 /dev/sda
else
      hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
fi

This means 200 for Battery and 254 (no power management) for AC Power.

[JadeEmperor]

don't forget to use the "-S xxx" option with hdparm otherwise you're hard disk will run hot. the "-S xxx" option will spin down the drives motor after a few minutes of being idle thereby saving on power and keeping your temp in acceptable range.

man hdparm for "-S xxx"

[M4rc0]

Just installed F11 and started hearing those clicks again. So the bug still remains.

Re-did the what is described in this link and everything is back to normal so far.

[stevea]

Someone should mark this as important Leigh. This is a common & serious problem and there are currently 3 threads on the topic that should be merged.

This certainly deserves a sticky howto.

[M4rc0]

#!/bin/bash
AC_POWER=$( /usr/bin/on_ac_power; echo $? )
if [ $AC_POWER -eq 1 ] ; then
      hdparm -B 200 /dev/sda
else
      hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
fi

This means 200 for Battery and 254 (no power management) for AC Power.

May I ask why 200 and 254?

I've found my ugly fix here somewhere and it's 255, 128:

#!/bin/bash
if on_ac_power; then
  # on AC so don't do any head parking
  hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda # or 254
else
  # either on battery or power status could not be determined
  # so quickly park the head to protect the disk
  hdparm -B 128 /dev/sda
fi

And I don't remember why those values
I stayed long time with F9 since everything was beautiful and stable, and now I'm with F11

Also, what do you guys have in the rc.local? hdparm -s -B 254 ?
And does /etc/rc.local or /etc.rc.d/rc.local have any difference?

[pedromatiello]

It seems like /etc/pm/power.d/disk is not being run here. Does anyone have any idea? Do I need to start any service?

[M4rc0]

Hi pedro,

Here in my laptop it is not beeing run either.

So the other solution is to create a file called 99-hdd-ugly-fix.sh, make it executable (chmod +x) and put the following content:

#!/bin/bash
if on_ac_power; then
  # on AC so don't do any head parking
  hdparm -q -B 254 -q -S 0 /dev/sda # or 255
else
  # either on battery or power status could not be determined
  # so quickly park the head to protect the disk
  hdparm -q -B 200 -q -S 252 /dev/sda
fi

So far so good here, although I prefer the pm fix from that suse link.

[convict]

My Load_Cycle_Count got up to 21656 from 21642 in the time it took me to read this thread... this is a bad, bad sign, isn't it? Should I enable this "dirty" fix?