[mythtv-users] OT: system disk failure

[Josu Lazkano]

2013/10/6 Stephen Worthington <stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz>:
> On Sat, 5 Oct 2013 22:27:37 +0200, you wrote:
>
>>Hello all,
>>
>>This is maybe a off topic, but I am worried about it.
>>
>>My backend system disk is showing this message on boot:
>>
>># dmesg | grep error
>>[    3.540794] ata3.00: failed to enable AA (error_mask=0x1)
>>[    3.541652] ata3.00: failed to enable AA (error_mask=0x1)
>>
>>I read that it is related to a disk failure, is this really a problem?
>>
>>Thanks.
>
> A bit of googling finally found some kernel code that displays this
> error:
>
> http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/drivers/ata/libata-core.c
>
> That tells me that this error seems to be related to a feature flag
> for SATA II drives.  Further googling shows that it is something to do
> with FIS (Frame Information Structure, a type of port multiplier). The
> drive apparently advertises that it has the AA (Auto Activate) feature
> but when a command is sent to set the AA option, it does not work, so
> the kernel reports an error.  Or so the driver thinks - it may be a
> driver bug.  Have you updated your kernel recently?
>
> If the drive is not connected via a port multiplier, then it is likely
> that you can just ignore this message.  Even if it is on a port
> multiplier, as best I can tell, all that will happen is that this
> feature will not be used, when possibly the drive supports it.  It is
> also possible that the drive has a firmware bug and is advertising a
> feature that it actually does not support.
>
> It would be a good idea to use smartctl to check out the drive and see
> if there are any other problems, just in case.  And check that the
> cable is OK, in case it might be caused by a signaling error in the
> cable.  But otherwise I would just get smartctl to run a long drive
> test and if it passed, I would ignore this AA error.
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Thanks for your reply.

The disk is system disk. Need I to unplug and execute in other PC with smartctl?

Which is the long drive test?

Thank you very much for your help.

Best regards.

-- 
Josu Lazkano