[180] in linux-scsi channel archive
Re: SCSI disk SPIN-UP on pwr-up ?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Weller)
Fri May 19 13:29:50 1995
Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 18:52:51 +0200 (MSZ)
From: Michael Weller <eowmob@exp-math.uni-essen.de>
To: Rob Janssen <pe1chl@wab-tis.rabobank.nl>, blevin@netcom.com
Cc: linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <9505191640.AA14968@pollux.exp-math.uni-essen.de>
> To: linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu
> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,
> comp.os.linux.admin
> Subject: Re: SCSI disk SPIN-UP on pwr-up ?
> References: <blevinD8s9xG.8Aq@netcom.com>
> Reply-To: pe1chl@wab-tis.rabobank.nl
> Message-Id: <9505191107.AA01029@sys3.pe1chl.ampr.org>
> Date: 19 May 95 13:07:11 DS
> From: rob@sys3.pe1chl.ampr.org (Rob Janssen)
>
> In <blevinD8s9xG.8Aq@netcom.com> blevin@netcom.com (Bryan Levin) writes:
>
> >On many unix workstations, the scsi disks only spin up with a scsi command.
> >As such, most hard drives (I've encountered) don't spin up until told to do
> >so.
>
> >However, on my linux system (with pcmcia 'new media bus toaster scsi-2 card')
> >I can't get my external scsi drives to spin up. Should they (with 1.2.8
> >kernel)?
[...]
> Hmmm strange... I have yet to encounter a disk that cannot spin-up
> automatically at power-up. But probably they exist, especially when
> you get your disks from systems that want no spin-up.
> (special firmware version?)
>
> >So, is the kernel supposed to send this scsi command? I scanned the source
> >code but only found 1 occurence of "spin up", and it looks like it "should"
> >spin up, but I am not a linux kernel hacker ;-)
> I checked that part in hd.c and there may be a problem with it.
> At the start of the function sd_init_onedisk a comment says:
[...]
> Did it work?
No, I didn't write the code.
However, due to some intermediate problems (actually a new TOSHIBA disk
was jumpered to report Unit attention at reset which caused my AHA1742
to fail and actually insist on not spinning that weard disk up)
I came into the linux boot sequence with a not spun up disk and it did
nicely spin up from linux..
You get a message: Spinning up disk and a sequence of "." as the kernel
waits for the disk to become ready.. looks nicely..
However as I have some DOS partition on it too I finally found that config
fault and have it now spun up by the adaptec's bios. This was some time
ago now. I can easily (simply have to hop in my EISA cfg) try it with
1.2.6 if someone believes it doesn't work anymore.
Also it would be quite nice if the disk were spun down again when the last
partition on it is closed and esp. when shutting down.
Thus in general (albeit possible bugs in the scsi driver for your machine,
the scsi board, the drives firmware) I would expect it to work.
Michael.
(eowmob@exp-math.uni-essen.de or eowmob@pollux.exp-math.uni-essen.de
Please do not use my vm or de0hrz1a accounts anymore. In case of real
problems reaching me try mat42b@aixrs1.hrz.uni-essen.de instead.)
