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. Thanks so much for these excellent suggestions, I will be pursuing all of these avenues. My apologies as well for the html mail - if Gmail's interface can be believed, I am now sending plaintext only. Once I get past these issues, I should be switching over to qmail & Mutt on my new CentOS machine -- and the Mutt, she don't lie :-)