hard drive head parking in linux
Hello, Steven --
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I understand that early PC hard drives had to have their heads parked when shut down,
A blast from the past. Yes, indeed, pre-IDE drives (two data cables) needed parking. Over the years I've had several of these monsters. I even installed a small Linux on one (it had to be small 'cause the HD was only 20mb :-). Did you know that the latest Slackware (8.1) still provides a stock kernel (xt.i) for such drives? Imagine that: a 2.4.18 kernel on an old Seagate MFM.
But do you know whether or not Linux lifts the HD heads after a period of inactivity, or is this already an automatic feature of the later hard drives... say, my (approx.) 700MB HD on this machine? I'm guessing Linux (including your BL 1.7) parks hard drive heads (if not done by the HD mechanism itself) upon shutdown... but I'm not certain about what happens to the hard drive heads during up time...
Or are you implying that the "stock kernel (xt.i)" *does* support this hard drive head parking/"resting" feature... for XTs and later hard drives?
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You gotta give credit to Jerry. He doesn't just talk the talk, he walks the walk. A close reading of his message header reveals that he is indeed using a minimalist mailer for this list.
Oh? I thought that "mail" was the Standard Procedure for "Mr. BasicLinux" himself... ;-)
This 486 DX2 is one of my more *powerful* machines... actually, it was "newly" constructed (with some used parts, but new case and monitor) only about five years ago. This was done at my expense through Computer Renaissance in the USA. I've intended it to be a showcase demonstration of the capabilities of a DOS-only computer system comprised largely of freeware and/or abandoned software (and some inexpensive shareware from my past purchases); it contains PC DOS 7 in its boot-up partition (thrown away -- still in the unbroken plastic-wrapped box). Now, however, it also demonsrates the dual capabilities of DOS/Linux -- thanks to your wonderful distribution of BasicLinux 1.7. I've wished for several years to have a console-only installation of Linux (without that enormous quantity of "X" material) from which I could have full textual style Internet services. Your BasicLinux is installed in the larger area of this machine's hard drive (PC DOS has about 160 MBs, and BasicLinux 1.7 has two partitions in the remainder of the 688 MB HD, minus around 16 MBs for its swap partition). Originally, the Linux partition was RH 5.0, but I couldn't figure out how to install that without X, until your excellent distribution became available -- which only occupies (according to du) about 9.2 MBs of its ext2 partition (this includes several other add-ons from the Slackware 3.5 distribution site; your basic BL installation is only about half that size, I believe).
And I have other classic systems -- a venerable old IBM AT and XT, among others... all in splendid shape and Internet-ready...
Anyway, back to topic... ?!
Jerry... on a 486 DX2-50MHz with 8MB RAM in BasicLinux 1.7 and Midnight Commander at the lab of Classic Systems, Ltd.
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Quoted 14 lines · Jerry James Haumberger
Hello, Steven --
Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 2 lines
I understand that early PC hard drives had to have their heads parked when shut down,
A blast from the past. Yes, indeed, pre-IDE drives (two data cables) needed parking. Over the years I've had several of these monsters. I even installed a small Linux on one (it had to be small 'cause the HD was only 20mb :-). Did you know that the latest Slackware (8.1) still provides a stock kernel (xt.i) for such drives? Imagine that: a 2.4.18 kernel on an old Seagate MFM.
Quoted 3 lines
But do you know whether or not Linux lifts the HD heads after a period of inactivity, or is this already an automatic feature of the later hard drives... say, my (approx.) 700MB HD on
^^^^^^^^
They made MFM or RLL drives that big?
I would guess that a drive that big is IDE. :-|
Regards, Chuck
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Quoted 3 lines · Jerry James Haumberger
is this already an automatic feature of the
later hard drives...
Yes, AFAIK this is an automatic feature of all IDE drives.
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Or are you implying that the "stock kernel (xt.i)" *does* support this hard drive head parking/"resting" feature... for XTs and later hard drives?
Hmmm, I don't know. xt.i contains support for the non-IDE HD block device, but I have no idea whether this includes parking. My guess would be: probably not.
It's not a big issue (it will be a very rare bird that runs Linux on an old XT HD). If you want to protect the HD, just reset to DOS and run the park utility before powering down.
Cheers,
Steven
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