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#1 2010-10-13 11:48:14

gaudencio
Member
Registered: 2009-03-30
Posts: 33

hd(face)parm and fsck advice sought

hey folks, this one could probably go in the "dumbest computer mistake" thread too, but I actually need an answer. I bought a brand new 2TB WD Green HDD a while back, and intending to do hdparm -C (check status switch) I hit the next key to the left, giving me hdparm -X (scary confusing switch with big warnings in the man page). My first EVER command line typo and it had to be that. Now my hard drive goes click every now and then, even after unmounting (though only a couple of times, then it stops). fsck claims there's no errors. I'm a bit scared of using e2fsck -f (force) because it's ext4 formatted. Can anyone give me an idea of what the -X switch would have done, the man page was over my head, and if it's possible to check what it did or fix the damage? Is it possible the clicking is normal/benign and I didn't damage it? The output message gave an error saying it couldn't do it, but it took its time?
  btw, this was a few months back and it's been absolutely fine since, but every time it clicks my bowels turn and my spine    tingles. Of course, the only way to really remedy that is to buy another disk and clone it, but alas that's not an option right now.

thanks for any help

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#2 2010-10-13 19:03:15

fphillips
Member
From: Austin, TX
Registered: 2009-01-24
Posts: 202

Re: hd(face)parm and fsck advice sought

The click is probably just the heads unloading/parking. Since this is a low-power Green drive, it will park the heads more often than a normal drive. You can try looking at the spindown (-S) and acoustic management (-M) settings if you want to change the behavior.

I doubt your typo changed anything, especially considering the error. I don't know if it's even possible to change the transfer mode on a SATA drive. The -X setting was used on PATA/IDE drives. SATA will autonegotiate their link speed with the motherboard controller. You can check the -i/-I identification output to see if it is in the fastest udma mode (udma6 usually). Then check -t and it should give a reasonable speed around 80MB/s.

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#3 2010-10-14 11:27:09

gaudencio
Member
Registered: 2009-03-30
Posts: 33

Re: hd(face)parm and fsck advice sought

thanks a million for that, I really couldn't have asked for a better answer. Very relieved.

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#4 2010-10-14 14:37:17

scire
Member
Registered: 2009-11-16
Posts: 16

Re: hd(face)parm and fsck advice sought

I have a 1TB Caviar Green and it is clicking very often as well, I was worried as well but then realized what fphillips said about low powered drives.
Just thought I'd let you know that it is happening on other Green drives, and that I've had mine for over a year without any problems.

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