Searching through the last boot log (trying to determine what is ata2), I see: For the old 40G: ata2.00: ATAPI: CRD-8400B, 1.04, max UDMA/33 ata2.00: configured for PIO4 ata2.00: device is on DMA blacklist, disabling DMA ata2.01: 78165360 sectors, multi 16: LBA ata2.01: ATA-5: WDC WD400BB-00CLB0, 05.04E05, max UDMA/100 ata2.01: configured for UDMA/33 For the new 1TB: ata6.00: ATA-8: WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B1, 05.00K05, max UDMA/133 ata6.00: configured for UDMA/133 ata6: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) ata6: SATA max UDMA/133 mmio m1048576 at 0xf4100000 port 0xf4128000 irq 5 It looks like ata1 & ata2 are the IDEs and ata3-ata6 are the new SATA card (?). So perhaps these messages are potential drive failure ones? -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Jensen [mailto:jjensen at apache.org] Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 8:02 AM To: 'tclug-list at mn-linux.org' Subject: ata "failed command: WRITE DMA", "ATA bus error" messages To my old backup server (running BackupPC), I recently added a PCI SATA card and 1TB drive, and installed Fedora 13 (and removed 2 IDE smaller drives; the boot drive is still an older IDE 40G; was running Fedora 11). Messages log regularly has this set of messages, much more frequent when the backup is running: May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.01: BMDMA stat 0x44 May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.01: failed command: WRITE DMA May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.01: cmd ca/00:c0:4f:8c:1a/00:00:00:00:00/f0 tag 0 dma 98304 out May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: res 51/84:00:0e:8d:1a/00:00:00:00:00/f0 Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error) May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.01: status: { DRDY ERR } May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.01: error: { ICRC ABRT } May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2: soft resetting link May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.00: device is on DMA blacklist, disabling DMA May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.00: configured for PIO4 May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2.01: configured for UDMA/33 May 28 06:49:38 nacho kernel: ata2: EH complete I've googled various words from the messages, but what I find are CD drive related messages and "now it takes longer to boot, so change modprobe" type things. I think mine is related to the new drive (just a hint from the "ATA bus error" and 'ata' all over the messages ;-), possibly harmless messages or maybe a SATA card config or compatibility problem(?). I'm surprised they keep repeating - if it was just a config error, I would think it would adjust once (maybe at boot) and then be done. Can anyone point me to an RTFM or hints how to research/what is the cause pretty-please?!