Hard Drive "Parking" problem

[craig10x]

Hi: I absolutely love the new LMDE 64 bit edition (which i finally got installed with the help of poster "seeley" on another thread (due to lack of experience doing manual partitioning)...

One quirk i am having...my friend who knows a lot about computers believes it is what is known as "hard drive parking"...
Now, i have had various distros on this toshiba laptop (which is 2 yrs old)...but most have been "ubuntu based" such as ubuntu/kubuntu/mint main edition/mint kde...and i did NOT have the problem...my HD was perfectly quiet...

However, i once had PcLinuxOs installed on this laptop and experienced this quirk and now have the same thing with LMDE (both of these of course are not ubuntu based)...

The drive makes sort of a "clomp" noise...no set pattern to it..sometimes every 5 or 10 seconds...other times much longer intervals...
There is nothing wrong with the drive...and it has only done this on these two distros (must be some power management setting ubuntu does that seems to prevent it from happening i guess)...

I was wondering if anyone has had experience with this problem and knows any easy solutions for it?
Thanks It's not super-loud but is a bit annoying...And i wasn't sure if it is harmful to the drive in terms of shortening it's life...

I've googled it but i read a lot of different "conflicting" solutions for it....
Of course i wouldn't want to do anything that might mess something else up (like make the computer run hotter, or cause some other problem)...
Or is this something i will probably just have to "live with" if i want to enjoy LMDE on this laptop?

[craig10x]

Interesting...i guess i am the only one on here using LMDE that is experiencing this particular problem then....There's a lot of information about this when i google it and apparently seems to happen to many people with laptops (especially when using non-ubuntu based distros...it doesn't seem to happen in windows or usually with ubuntu because they must make some kind of different setting in the "power management" of the laptop)...

The solutions i have read are conflicting and also one particular one that was mentioned which involve typing an: hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda
command in the terminal..doesn't even work when i tried doing that...because my terminal doesn't recognize the command...

[rivenathos]

My Toshiba Satellite M55-S325 runs a fully updated 32-bit Debian Squeeze. I do not have any of the hard drive parking issues you are describing. I am just tossing that out there.

Is your LMDE fully updated with the Level 4 and 5 updates? Right now, Squeeze is squashing bugs by updating the packages. If something you need is a Level 4 in LMDE, and you do not update it, then you do not benefit from the bug fix. Right now, you probably need all the Squeeze updates. Once Squeeze goes stable and Wheezy gets going, LMDE tracks that. Then, I am unsure what to expect besides lots of fun.

Also, if you update your LMDE with Level 4 and 5 packages, it might be best to answer "keep original file" when those questions are asked. I think Debian wants to "fix" a few files that Linux Mint has in there.

If anyone else has anything else to contribute, feel free to jump on in.

[craig10x]

I've been doing only up to the level 3 updates...i could try that (take the level 4 and 5 also) hoping that soemthing will get fixed that will solve the problem...might be worth trying...though you said when it asks me if i want to change a file and should say no because it will change something mint has in there?

I remember when i had a level 3 update about changing something in the boot process..it mentioned it would make it work better so i let it do it..and it seems to be causing no problem..might even be better...

Oh, i see what you mean...while debian is still in stable mode..there is no harm in using 4 and 5 level updates but when it goes to testing it is probably safer to return to level 3 again?

Actually, i was also wondering if it would be ok to just take all updates...up to level 5...all of the time....

Also, how do you know when it switches, do they announce it on the debian website? (going from stable to testing and testing back to stable again)...

Also..any other feedback on this topic will be welcome as well...
Including my Hard Drive "parking" problem...

[rivenathos]

When Debian 6 Squeeze goes stable, you will know it from all the announcements all over the Internet. Back in February of 2009 when Lenny went stable, on the 14th and the week after, there were announcements most everywhere.

[craig10x]

Well i switched up to level 5 and took the updates (including a kernel change)..went very smooth though i don't think it knocked out my hd parking problem...i will monitor and see...might be doing it less often now but i will have to observe for awhile to be sure about that...

Do you think it will be ok to stay at level 5 when testing updates start flooding into LMDE or would i be wiser to knock it back to "3" during that period...i would rather avoid problems of course, if possible....

Thanks by the way, rivenathos... i would just like your feedback on that last question, though..otherwise anyone have any thoughts about my hd parking let me know...Interesting that your toshiba does not have the problem...maybe i will have better luck when i buy my next toshiba (love them by the way) though that won't be for some time as this one has been running 2 years and it's still like the day i got it!

On my laptop, it's only done that hd parking thing on "non-ubuntu based" distros...also didn't do it when i ran it's native windows vista...which i no longer have on here...

[rivenathos]

If you are not comfortable with any possible breakage, I would suggest sticking with Levels 1-3 once Squeeze goes stable. There should be plenty of discussion in the forum about what to do next. While everything is still Squeeze, I would get everything available.

I am thinking I shall not be doing any updates when Testing becomes Wheezy to begin with. Well, I am probably going to have a spare drive to test things on first before messing with one of my good installs.