Blizzard
Member
I have this strange Seagate 160GB PATA (ST3160023A). I can read almost every sector without error but it gets stuck busy if it reads large chunks of data without error (3000+ sectors). At first I was thinking bad cache chip but a different PCB shows the same issue. To work around it I have set the timeout to approx 15ms. If I do that then it reads some good and some bad but does not get stuck bsy. After about 10GBs are read I just change the timeout to 100ms and reread everything and it cleans it up without getting stuck busy! Then I start over for the next 10GB or so at 15ms, or sometimes I have to adjust + or - 1 to 5ms to get a good mix of red, green, yellow 
Then repeat at 100ms and clean it all up.
It's really odd that it reads all green at anything over about 60ms timing but it goes busy after 3000+ blocks read.
It works DMA or hardware retries but seems to be more manageable using hardware retries. I also tried 1 head at time but it made no difference.
In the end the job will complete but at this rate it will be a 3-5 day job with some micro-managing.
Then repeat at 100ms and clean it all up.
It's really odd that it reads all green at anything over about 60ms timing but it goes busy after 3000+ blocks read.
It works DMA or hardware retries but seems to be more manageable using hardware retries. I also tried 1 head at time but it made no difference.
In the end the job will complete but at this rate it will be a 3-5 day job with some micro-managing.
