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hdparm TiVo binary available...

I've put up a binary of the 'hdparm' utility that runs on a TiVo.

With this, I was able to turn off the power saver spindown feature on my Maxtor drive that somehow got turned on, and was causing 'stuttering'. Be careful: A lot of the options of this program can be dangerous. Read the man page contained in the archive (catman format). The tarball is at:

ftp://tivohack.turbolink.net/incoming/hdparm-tivobin.tar.bz2

Perhaps someone will move it into the /binaries directory on that server, so this link could change <shrug>.

- Yog


[This message has been edited by Yog (edited 11-15-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Yog (edited 11-15-2000).]

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What is a "catman" archive???? I guess I've been out of the Unix world too long . Can you post this in a format that Windoz users can decompress?

Thanks!

Scott

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It's compressed with bzip2 - much better compression than any version of zip/gzip/winzip etc. You can get a dos (and windows) executable with the cygwin distribution ( http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/ ). You also need to install the cygwin dll to use it.

[This message has been edited by stamasd (edited 11-16-2000).]

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Registered: Apr 2000
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First, I want to thank Yog profusely. I cannot say for sure that my stuttering is over, but there is no question that my drive was spinning down.

The reason it was spinning down: my Dell's BIOS was set to tell it to do so. I'm sure many other people were having this problem.

So, I would like to nominate Yog's information for the Hack FAQ, and I would request, if possible, that hdparm be added to Dylan's boot disk. (I just created a Llinux partition, installed Linux and then installed hdparm manually, but this is a lot of work to change one IDE flag on a drive.)

Once again, Yog thank you. I recommend people who have the type of stutter where the video and audio pause for a second and then restart check to see if their drives are spinning down.

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How do you find out if the drive is spinning down? I get the occasional, annoying, pauses and I can't figure out why.

What's the parameter for hdparam?

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Registered: Apr 2000
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I ran my TiVo with the cover off after Yog made his post. With AMSET set to off, it's easy to hear (on a Maxtor, anyway).

Check the BIOS on the system that you used to bless the drive--if it is set to do power management on the hard drive, there is a good chance you are having the problem.

hdparm S 0 /dev/hdX

is the command.

See here for more information.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by jfdulles:
First, I want to thank Yog profusely. I cannot say for sure that my stuttering is over, but there is no question that my drive was spinning down.

Once again, Yog thank you. I recommend people who have the type of stutter where the video and audio pause for a second and then restart check to see if their drives are spinning down.

---

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I just verified that HDPARM works! I ran it on my 60M maxtor in my Tivo, then took it out, and powered it up on my laptop with the drive hanging out on the workbench. It hasn't spun down in over 50 minutes! Yeah team!

[This message has been edited by Scotty2 (edited 11-26-2000).]

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I've just run hdparm -S 0 /dev/hdb on my 60GB Maxtor, and am crossing my fingers that it will cure the occasional stuttering that I've been experiencing.

Possibly stupid question: Does the new standby timeout setting stick permanently, or does the hdparm command need to be run every time the TiVo is powered up?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Spire:
Does the new standby timeout setting stick permanently, or does the hdparm command need to be run every time the TiVo is powered up?

---

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Registered: May 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
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Is there anyone who could post any information on using hdparm with Dylan's boot disk? I would like to try using hdparm on my stuttering drive but just don't have enough linux info to get it done. Any info would be greatly appreaciated.

Thanks. Steve

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Registered: Apr 2000
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Well, I hate to rain on the parade, but even after changing hdparm on my Maxtor, I got a stutter this evening.

I suspect that when I made my backup, however, my Dell set the Quantum A drive to power save mode as well, so I have just ran hdparm on it. I will report back if it stutters.

By the way, I am assuming that because my BIOS was set to enable hard drives power saving modes, that any IDE drive I installed would be affected. Does anyone out there know if this is true or not? (I'm using a Dell XPS R350 with BIOS A13.)

Fingers crossed.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Yog:
I've put up a binary of the 'hdparm' utility that runs on a TiVo.

With this, I was able to turn off the power saver spindown feature on my Maxtor drive that somehow got turned on, and was causing 'stuttering'. Be careful: A lot of the options of this program can be dangerous. Read the man page contained in the archive (catman format). The tarball is at:

ftp://tivohack.turbolink.net/incoming/hdparm-tivobin.tar.bz2

Perhaps someone will move it into the /binaries directory on that server, so this link could change <shrug>.

---

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I just copied a backup disk to my 60G Maxtor using dd and found that the drive is spinning down again. I wonder where that powerdown flag is stored on the drive? I wonder if I overwrote it when did a complete disk copy? Oh well I set it again using hdparm

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Registered: Apr 2000
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Scotty,
Did you copy the drive on your laptop?

If so, I'm betting your laptop reset the IDE parameters on all hard drives to save power.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by jfdulles:
Scotty,
Did you copy the drive on your laptop?

If so, I'm betting your laptop reset the IDE parameters on all hard drives to save power.

---

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Registered: Apr 2000
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Well, I ran hdparm on both the Quantum and the Maxtor, and still my machine gives me the occasional stutter.

I think I will throw in the towel and live with it. It sometimes doesn't happen for days.

Anyone out there have any other suggestions? I have tried everything except restoring and doing a destructive write to the Maxtor.

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WOW! When I first started this thread, there was no reply for a while, and I stopped checking this Forum for a while because I got busy. OOPS. Even though it's a month later, I'll try to answer some questions.

How did I figure out the drive was powering down ?
I had the cover off the TiVo for a while after the upgrade. I'd simply hear the drive spin up accompanied by a long freeze. Once the drive finished spinng up, the TiVo would proceed.

Did it cure the stuttering ?
Based on other's experiences with this drive, I expected the occasional stutter. That I can live with. But the power-down is another story. Now that I turned the power down off, the rare stuttering doesn't bother me. I think these stutters are unavoidable, since this Maxtor 80 isn't an "A/V" drive. There was another thread discussing this in detail.

What causes the power-saver mode to be turned on ?
I think in my case, and it looked like most other people's cases, it was your PC's BIOS which turned this on. Most PCs I see have IDE power saver mode turned on in the BIOS by default. If you put an IDE drive into the PC, this will be turned on. I ran hdparm on both my A and B drive to get rid of the spin downs (the A drive was trickier to figure out, since it powered down much less often, and was quieter on spinup).

Is the power-saver mode persistant across drive power cycles ?
To be honest, I'm not sure. Since I ran hdparm, I havn't powered down the TiVo :-). It's been rebooted many times, but this shouldn't make a difference since the drive stays powerd up. However, based on other posts in this thread, it looks like it is a persistant parameter. I know that the power-saver mode stayed ON after many drive power cycles after I put it into my PC. So this either means it's persistant, or the default power-on condition. If the other posts in this thread are correct, I think it's the former, not the later.

How can I extract a tar file on the TiVo ?
CPIO is capable of working with tar files. Just un-bzip it (bzip is there too), and use the correct option (I forget what it is!) with cpio, and you can untar this. If you can't figure it out, you can always use winzip to untar it and just upload the separate files (not sure if Winzip handles bzip2 however).

Anyway, sorry it took so long to reply. I'm happy that a few have been able to apparently solve the spin down problem by using this utility. Have fun.

-Yog

quote:

---

Originally posted by jfdulles:
Well, I ran hdparm on both the Quantum and the Maxtor, and still my machine gives me the occasional stutter.

I think I will throw in the towel and live with it. It sometimes doesn't happen for days.

Anyone out there have any other suggestions? I have tried everything except restoring and doing a destructive write to the Maxtor.

---

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I have to wonder if, for future blessing, it might be wise to set power saver off in the bios before blessing the drive. (??) I may do just that on my quantum lct15 which I am about to install. (waiting on bracket) I blessed it once - perhaps re-blessing it with the bios set to "no spindown" might be good karma. (the lcd15 has a slower speed) Any comments would be much appreciated.

On second thought, my PowerManagement/APM is disabled, because I have ACPI Aware O/S set to disabled... so I'm probably OK, and the drive has never been booted in Windoze.


[This message has been edited by helpdeskdan (edited 12-30-2000).]

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What settings can you send to a Western Digital drive? I haven't noticed any stuttering problems, but the 30GB WD drive I added back in August is noisy. It would be nice to quiet some of its chatter.

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