I was wondering if the above message means that there is a problem with the hard drive? I have installed Version 2.0 consumer image (not beta) and do not get the error message but when I install the latest Hijack (431) after every boot and when first accessing the Hard disk the error message appears. Oddly, it seems to play tracks OK regardless of the error. My player is a Mk 2a. Please advise me on what is causing this error message.

The message probably actually says this: hda: disk error: read_intr

Attention to accuracy can be important when seeking help here.

This particular message is not a big deal unless you see it often. The Linux IDE driver (which I wrote) will retry the failed command. Dunno why it fails the first time for you though.

-ml

Oops! I apologise for mis-quoting the error message, I was trying to remember what the message was as the machine was not in front of me when I posted the original query. The error message does seem to be displayed whenever I select a different playlist and set it to play, which I guess means every time it makes an initial read of the disk, oddly though it doesn't seem to display the message when it reads each track in the playlist, just the initial read for the playlist. (Incidently it did this when I loaded Hijack version 426 as well, which was why I re-downloaded the ver 2.0 consumer image and reflashed the machine with it and then downloaded and installed Hijack 431, so I was surprised when it did it again.)

Hijack displays the message, but the error is occuring even without Hijack installed -- you just don't get an on-screen message when using the stock v2 software. More information will be available on the serial port output regardless, which is where you should be looking now.

I have included here the boot log from Hyperterminal as (I believe) was suggested to allow further diagnosis of the problem.

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 (hugo@empeg.com)
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kerne
l.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v431 (hijack@rtr.ca) (g
2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Tue May 24 19:50:51 EDT 2005
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e91ba9f0
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 30102211) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15008k/16M available (984k code, 20k reserved, 368k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA110
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 636f6972 'rioc'
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
Scheduling custom logo.
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005400).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, 19077MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=38760/16/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:26:08:a
3
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...hange_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initTimezone: Australia/Adelaide
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 579:empeg-car 3.00-alpha8 2004/07/07.
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x40
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 0
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1490 Jul 7 2004
Vcb: 0x4073a000
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x40
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 0

Well, Mark, I tried your suggestion, (thankyou heaps) but I think it didn't work (see the log below) and so I guess I am faced with having to buy a new drive. No really big deal I guess, since I always planned to put a much bigger drive in the Empeg anyway. Just means the need is a bit more urgent now. Thanks again for your help, I know you must be a very busy man, so that makes the time you give here so much more appreciated.

(This is the log while trying to fix the problem)
empeg:/empeg/bin# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda3 bs=512 count=1
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=133057, sector=0
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 0
dd: /dev/hda3: Input/output error
1+0 records in
0+0 records out
empeg:/empeg/bin#

(After next boot - this part of the log seems to confirm it)
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=133057, sector=0
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 0
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=133057, sector=0
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 0
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=133057, sector=0
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 0

Well, try again with something a little more drastic:

cat /dev/zero >/dev/hda3

(it will eventually fail with "access beyond end of device" or some such dribble, but it should NOT fail with the same error you've been getting thus far).

Thanks Mark, you're amazing! It Worked! What does that last command actually do, if I might ask, for future refernce?

Fills hard disk partition "hda3" with zeroes, if I understand correctly...

Thankyou Tony. However, I don't understand how that fixed the issue. (I am in IT 2nd / 3rd level support with a large international company, so I have a good technical background but in Windows, not Linux) Maybe I don't understand the actual nature of the error in the first place?

If I understand correctly, the idea was to trigger bad sector remapping mechanism done by disk firmware, but only on writes. Of course, old data is lost and this only works thanks for the fact that the partition in case holds data that the player software replaces dynamically.

The first one only erased the first 512 bytes. The second command erased the entire (EDIT) partition.

Yes the intention was to let the drive automatically map out the bad sectors which only occurs when the device is written to.

Like the others said, it forced the drive to rewrite the track containing the bad sector, at which time the drive itself either repairs the bad bits or remaps the sector/track to a factory "spare" designated for such purposes.

Sometimes writing only the reported bad sector won't work -- as in the first attempt here. The reason for that is that drives don't actually work on a per-sector basis anymore, and so writing the entire "track" is required to "fix" it. But nobody other than the drive itself knows what a "track" is, so the second command I gave you simply nukes the entire partition, hoping that this will include enough of the physical "track" to get the job done.

In the course of this, you will have lost your radio presets, equalizer settings, and per-track sound profiling data that the player automatically builds up. All of that stuff was on /dev/hda3 somewhere. No biggie, but a minor nuisance for some.

Cheers

Thanks to all of you, that does explain it very clearly. My sincerest thanks to Mark in particular for sorting this out for me. I have made a note of this for future reference should I ever need it again.

Should go into the FAQ, or be made sticky here.

Can I just make the request it goes in the FAQ if anywhere? After a while too many sticky posts just get annoying. Particularly on forums where the first half of the first page of posts are sticky.

Even the first few here annoy me a bit when I'm looking for new threads/posts.

I'm confused. Exactly what do you want in the FAQ?

It does work so well connotatively, though. The implication that it acts as the first drop of rain warning of a coming storm is compelling, especially since several definitions come so close to what he means, even if none of them really quite backs it up.

Maybe now with this "perpendicular storage", the definition meaning "to fall headlong" will come into use.

Naw, Most drives now have bad ( and remapped ) sectors from the factory, and they then last for years.

The only way to know for sure about impending drive failures is to watch the S.M.A.R.T. data from smartctl.

Cheers

Oh... and...

Quote:
The only way to know for sure about impending drive failures is to watch the S.M.A.R.T. data from smartctl.

Wouldn't new bad sectors suddenly appearing on the disk trigger SMART errors anyway?

S.M.A.R.T. monitors a hell of a lot more than simply a count of bad sectors, Tony.

Cheers

Yeah, but his point is that you're saying that SMART is the only indicator of a failing drive, but if bad sectors trigger SMART to say that the drive is failing, then the bad sectors themselves indicate a failing drive, regardless of other indicators. I don't think that's 100% accurate, but that's what he's saying.