/etc/fstab syntax

[skaven04]

I've been trying to set up some old hard drives in my linux box and I keep getting the following error while transferring files to them using samba:

ide_dmaproc: chipset supported ide_dma_timeout func only: 12
hdd: irq timeout: status=0x58 { DriverReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

The best guess I can come up with is that the drive, being old, doesn't support the "hard drive optimisations" that are enabled at startup. After all, these are old-skool 540MB hard drives that barely support PIO-2. I need to know how to turn these "optimisations" off (or learn what the actual problem is) and I think that the /etc/fstab file is the place to do this. I've been scouring the usual sites for some specific information regarding the syntax of the fstab file. In particular, the two numbers that appear after the "defaults" statement. Any information would be a great help!

[Jinx]

Not too sure if this is right, but it's a good thing to know anyways. ;)

Have a read through the Harddrive Tweaking NHF and the hdparm man pages. Might help...
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/hardware/hdtweak.html

Anything further than that all I know is reading "Warning enabling optimisation can corrupt data." in my Mandrake installation. Wouldn't mind knowing what it does myself. ;)

Cya round
Jinx

[Choozo]

The place to put harddrive tweaks (as far as I know) is in the /etc/rc.local file. Just add the parameters to hdparm at the end of the file:
#Turns ON 32-bit I/O, DMA and keeps the settings on /dev/hda
hdparm -c1d1k1 /dev/hda

Read man hdparm to get the parameters needed for your old disks :)