syncing/unmounting filesystems takes way too long

[chewinggumking]

Hello people

I have been using the knoppix CD now for a few weeks and I've come across this really annoying problem that seriuosly pisses me off. Everytime I enable DMA on my 160GB NTFS drive the OS takes forever to shut down.

It stops at "syncing/unmounting filesystems hdb1" which is the drive I mentioned above. Sometimes it continues after 10 to 15 minutes and shuts down but most of the time it just stays there till I reset my PC manually. This corrupts my persistent image on the USB stick on the next bootup. I'm afraid it might also damage my NTFS drive and or partition.

A good solution to this would be really neat. I've tried SimplyMepis and that does not have this problem. I prefer to use knoppix and would really like help on this issue.

Kind regards

Chew

[rusty]

A couple of things to check,

From a shell type: hdparm /dev/hdx , replacing the x with the letter of the drive in question. Do the same with mepis and see if they are different. If you are up to it there is a man page for hdparm, type: man hdparm or google for hdparm.

The other thing to check might be the file /etc/fstab that contains file system information. Again compare both knoppix and mepis.

There are probably other things worth looking at but these come to the top of my head.

HTH.

[chewinggumking]

Hello rusty

THis is what I get when I try hdparm

Mepis

/dev/hdb1:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 24321/255/63, sectors = 390716802, start = 63


Knoppix
/dev/hdb1:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 24321/255/63, sectors = 390716802, start = 63

[chewinggumking]

AS you can see both are the same and I need to know what else I can do to improve knoppix shutdown times.

Cheers

Chew

[rusty]

Hmm,
I see my two cents worth was worth every penny.

Since nobody else has reported a similar problem, I wonder if it could be a bad CD. A couple of other things: Do you see any messages in the console that suggest whats going on when shutting down? Are the drive(s) lights on while your waiting? What happens if you, from a root shell, type: umount /dev/hdx , then halt or reboot.

Just a few ideas to help diagnose the problem, maybe others will chime in with suggestions as well.

Regards.

[chewinggumking]

Mepis FSTAB
# Static entries below, do not use 'users' option in this area
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0


# Dynamic entries below, identified by 'users' option
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=0222 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=0222 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=0222 0 0

/dev/cloop0 /mnt/cloop0 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 vfat,ext3,ext2,reiserfs noauto,users,exec 0 0

Knoppix FSTAB
/proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/sys /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
/dev/pts /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/auto/floppy auto user,noauto,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/auto/cdrom auto user,noauto,exec,ro 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=000,uid=knoppix,gid=kno ppix 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=000,uid=knoppix,gid=kno ppix 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=000,uid=knoppix,gid=kno ppix 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 vfat noauto,users,exec,umask=000,uid=knoppix,gid=knoppi x 0 0

Rust as per your instructions I have copied my fstabs here too. I can't make much of them but I hope someone else can and then inform me,

Cheers

Chew

[chewinggumking]

Howdy Rusty

If I disable DMA for the HDD drive before I shutdown everything is ok. It shuts down quick and easy. If I don't disable DMA the OS takes long to reboot or shutdown. No error message. It just waits at "syncing/unmounting filesystems hdb1".

Cheers

Chew