hdparm?

[Darkbolt]

Hi...I've been looking around here alot and I've seen many 'tweaks' for peoples hard drives that include using command lines beginning with hdparm, but when I use them I get something like this...
bash: hdparm: command not found

I'd like to be able to increase the performance of my hard drive and speed up my system...can anyone help?

[anonilir]

you can find it in the /sbin dir

if its not there just do

locate hdparm

if you cant run the command by just typing hdparm

just go to the sbin dir and run it manually ./hdparm

[mdwatts]

You need to be root to execute hdparm.

[Darkbolt]

Thanks alot both of you :)

[Darkbolt]

I tried what you said and it said that there was no such file or directory...if it helps, I'm in mandrake8.2

[cabu1966]

It may not be installed....search on your installation cd's.

[fancypiper]

Results will be inaccurate if the filesystem is mounted and processes running, so boot in rescue or linux single to do tests and changes.

info hdparm
man hdparm

[Darkbolt]

I cant seem to find it anywhere atall...Would it make a difference if I downloaded only the first cd?...it takes a very long time to download on 56k, so thats what I opted for

[fancypiper]

Isn't Mandrake rpm based? Did you try rpmfind (http://rpmfind.net/)

[Timothy L. Miller]

As root, do whereis hdparm.
If it comes up with a directory, that's where it's installed, if it simply comes up with hparm:, then your #, then it's not installed.
If it's not installed, go ahead and do rpmdrake, then click on installable, and choose flat list, and look for hdparm. I'm not sure what cd it's on though, so if you have only the first, you might not have it, then go to rpmfind like someone else suggested and download a fresh rpm of it to install.

[glussier]

hdparm is on cdrom3 with Mandrake 8.2. Even if you have selected all installable packages at install time, hdparm was not installed.

To install it do as follow:


- Open a command console
- su to root
- urpmi hdparm




BTW every linux distros have strengths and weaknesses, and urpmi is one of the advantages of Mandrake, so you should learn about it. If you find a utility which isn't installed, just enter urpmi and the name of the utility or program, and Mandrake's urpmi will even tell you on which cd to get it. It can do a lot more than this, but reading the documentation will carry youi a long way. :)

[Darkbolt]

Thanks, that explains alot...I only downloaded the first cd, as I'm on 56k, so I'll have to download the others aswell...

[mdwatts]

You can probably just download individual packages from the Mandrake ftp servers.

Check the RPMS directory.

[glussier]

here's the link to the hdparm rpm hdparm-4.6-1mdk RPM for i586 (http://at.rpmfind.net/opsys/linux/RPM/mandrake/8.2/i586/RPMS/hdparm-4.6-1mdk.i586.html).

You might also want to have the download page for all /sbin rpm binaries for Mandrake 8.2: Mandrake 8.2 for i586 /sbin (http://at.rpmfind.net/opsys/linux/RPM/mandrake/8.2/i586/sbin_Tree.html)

[carlywarly]

In 8.2, you can tweak your drives by editing the file - /etc/sysconfig/harddisks - it is quite self-evident how to do this from the contents of the file. You can at least enable dma and drive read-lookahead in there, and they really speed things up.

[Darkbolt]

Thanks alot, I downloaded it from the mandrake server :D

[aceracer24]

I am having conflicting results with hdparm. On install of RedHat 7.3 it said dma was off by default and to edit the file /etc/sysconfig/hardisk. I did and uncomment the line for dma. But there was also stuff in that file that I left alone because I didn't know what it did. But using hdparm I can see that dma is now working as it should...but some of the other settings I did not uncomment are working as well such as multi = 16 or what ever it is. So...whats the deal? Did I uncomment something I didn't need to or is hdparm lieing to me? I to want the most out of my drive but don't want to botch it as I am duel booting.