[Bug 595138] Re: Settings in /etc/hdparm.conf are not applied during boot

[Eric_DL]

Problem detected on Ubuntu Studio x64 12.10 and reproduced under Studio
x64 10.10 (both OSes running on same machine - two different hard
drives).

Slightly the same situation as jdblair above (need to disable write cache on a disk at boot/resume time), except two differences :
    - classic hard drive, not an SSD
    - that drive is the boot drive

Added that new drive to be the target boot/root disk for 12.10 fresh install => turns out that kernel is unable to flush that disk's write cache when trying to shutdown, reboot or suspend (machine refuses to suspend and hangs on reboot/shutdown).
Bottom line : without disabling write caching on the boot disk at boot time, Ubuntu 12.10 is unusable.

Since hardware enumeration during boot is now completely dynamic, the
different hard drives in the machine don't get the same /dev pointer
each time, hence the UUID and bulk ID symlinks. So I added the following
directive at the end of /etc/hdparm.conf :

    /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VB0250EAVER_9VMTTK1M {
        write_cache = off
    }

But it never seems to be executed at boot time, as you can see below :

    root at bigboy:/etc# hdparm -W /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VB0250EAVER_9VMTTK1M

    /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VB0250EAVER_9VMTTK1M:
    write-caching =  1 (on)

I also commented the "quiet" directive at the beginning of
/etc/hdparm.conf, to have some log of what's going on, but to no avail.

Am I missing something ?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/595138

Title:
  Settings in /etc/hdparm.conf are not applied during boot

Status in “hdparm” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: hdparm

  After upgrade to Lucid the hard drives never spindown. The hdparm
  spindown settings (and most likely others) in /etc/hdparm.conf are not
  being applied during boot.

  This seems to have happened after removing the init.d script.

  
  lsb_release -rd
  Description:    Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
  Release:        10.04

  
  apt-cache policy hdparm
  hdparm:
    Installed: 9.15-1ubuntu9
    Candidate: 9.15-1ubuntu9
    Version table:
   *** 9.15-1ubuntu9 0
          500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

  
  cat /etc/hdparm.conf
  /dev/sda {
      spindown_time = 240
  }
  /dev/sdb {
      spindown_time = 240
  }
  /dev/sdc {
      spindown_time = 240
  }
  /dev/sdd {
      spindown_time = 240
  }
  /dev/sde {
      spindown_time = 240
  }
  /dev/sdf {
      spindown_time = 240
  }
  /dev/sdg {
      spindown_time = 240
  }

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