Re: [patch 2.6] don't put IDE disks in standby mode on halt on Alpha

[Mark McClelland <lists-lud@alpha.dyndns.org>]

Ivan Kokshaysky wrote:
> Spinning the disks down across a 'halt' on Alpha is even
> worse than doing that on reboot on i386 (assuming the
> boot device is IDE disk).
> Typically, the sequence to boot another kernel is:
> # halt
> kernel shuts down, firmware re-initializes,
> then on firmware prompt we type something like
> 
>>>>boot -file new_kernel_image.gz
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, the firmware does not expect the IDE drive
> to be in standby mode and reports 'bootstrap failure' on
> the first and all subsequent boot attempts until the
> drive spins up, which is extremely annoying and
> confuses users a lot.
> 
> This patch allows architectures override the default
> behavior (don't spin the disks down on reboot only)
> in asm/ide.h.

This isn't completely safe. I sometimes power off my Alpha after 
rebooting to the monitor program, for various reasons.

Wouldn't it be better to spin the disks down like normal, but then spin 
them back up just before rebooting?

-- 
Mark McClelland
mark@alpha.dyndns.org