[CentOS] USB external HDD error messages

Wed Oct 15 02:53:15 UTC 2008
Guest <notconfusedaboutthattoday at gmail.com>

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 9:38 AM, nate <centos at linuxpowered.net> wrote:
> Guest wrote:
>
>> Sorry to double up on your answer like this, but is there any chance that
>> the i/o errors are due to a bad usb cable, or usb card in the main
>> computer?  I didn't mention before that the external hdd that the seagate is
>> replacing also reported a lot of i/o errors and kept disconnecting itself,
>> which is why I replaced it....
>
> Perhaps the drive is spinning down without informing the OS. I recall
> an issue last year(?) about some USB drives not behaving properly
> and spinning down without informing the OS, then the OS tries to
> access them it gets an I/O error.
>
> All of my 2.5" western digital external USB drives seem to behave
> correctly when going into power save mode, have never had an I/O
> error as a result of them spinning down.
>
> nate

Revivifying an old thread only long enough to say, somewhat
unhelpfully, that all of my USB problems seem to have gone away as a
result of my upgrading my kernel to 2.6.27.

Unfortunately I am not knowledgeable enough to guess why this is so,
but I'm adding a conclusion to my thread as a possible clue for the
archive-diver.