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USB hardrive power-down and JFS crashes

Started by Ben, 2010.11.18, 18:24:53

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DougB

This thread prompted me to investigate this further. It is definitely windows that turned on the desire to spin down the disk drive. I hooked it up to windows again, and went to Control Panel-> Power. The system was set to go to power saving (including disk drives), but there was no obvious special setting for the USB drive (Samsung Story Station 1 TB), so I set the whole system to never power off anything, then disconnected the USB drive. Now, the drive doesn't power down while connected to eCS, so I have to assume that windows set something in the drive to cause the power down.

FWIW, I use my X-10 power control system to turn the drive on, and off, under control of the computer. At 4 AM, the drive is powered on, my daily backup is done, using RSYNC, and the computer powers the drive off again. If I need to use the drive at other times, I have an icon set to turn it on, and another icon set to turn it off. The turn off includes an eject command, and a 60 second timeout before it actually powers the drive off (the timeout seems to be unnecessary, but it is a safety thing, that makes me feel comfortable that all I/O has terminated).

Ben

Quote from: DougB on 2010.11.19, 20:06:00
FWIW, I use my X-10 power control system to turn the drive on, and off, under control of the computer. At 4 AM, the drive is powered on, my daily backup is done, using RSYNC, and the computer powers the drive off again. If I need to use the drive at other times, I have an icon set to turn it on, and another icon set to turn it off. The turn off includes an eject command, and a 60 second timeout before it actually powers the drive off (the timeout seems to be unnecessary, but it is a safety thing, that makes me feel comfortable that all I/O has terminated).

X-10 power control system? Isn't that a device to control outlets around the house?

But reading the first half of your post I recalled that when I first bought the drive i used it to backup a partition on my sister's comp, (Windows), before I ever got to use it. I'm wondering if it didn't have some effect on the settings inside the drive... definitely food for thought there.

Thanks, Doug.

DougB

QuoteX-10 power control system? Isn't that a device to control outlets around the house?

Yes. It controls the outlet where I plug in the USB drive power (it is not powered by the USB port). X-10 is pretty old technology, but it works. You do need to use a device that is designed to be on or off, you can't use one that is designed to dim lamps. There are two reasons why I did it that way 1) to keep the drive from running all of the time. 2) this machine doesn't like having the USB drive attached during boot. When it is powered off, it is still physically attached, but not "visible" to the BIOS.

My USB drive doesn't spin down any more, on it's own, since I "adjusted" it with windows. That solves the immediate problem, but it is really just a work around for the real problem, which I suspect might be in the OS/2 USB support..

Ben

OK.

My drive is powered from the cable so that option is not available for me.

I remember that X-10 technology years ago when they used to make OS/2 software controllers for that line. I damn near did setup my house like that, myself, but it never happened. 8(

But that hardware must be pretty old by now... unless they are still making it?

DougB

QuoteMy drive is powered from the cable so that option is not available for me.

I guess you need to try the windows power setup, to get the disk spin down set to off.

QuoteI remember that X-10 technology years ago when they used to make OS/2 software controllers for that line.

It was a third party that wrote the software for it. It isn't perfect, but it works well enough to use it.

The hardware is still available at: http://www.smarthome.com/_/X10_Compatible/_/23X/land.aspx (and possibly other places). I don't know if they still have the one that is compatible with the HOUSE2 software, which was done by Lone Peak Automation. There are a few versions of that at http://www.os2bbs.com/download/otherapp.html

The main problem that I have with the controllers is that they are operated over the power lines in the house. That is not working as well as it used to because of the electrical noise produced by the compact florescent light bulbs that I am now using. Still works though, if I am careful to place the controller in the "right place" (experiment).

Ben

Well, I got the use of a Windows machine and turned off all the power down settings.

I gave it try under OS/2 and... same thing. :-\

Next step is to try and find some drive-specific software and see what that can do.