HardDisk killer

[Nils Kassube]

Donn wrote:
> I don't wanna go read loads of pages;

why not? :)

> does this bug affect normal hard 
> drives in desktop machines?

No idea ...

> I have old IDE drives - how would I test the situation?

Install smartmontools. Then issue the command

smartctl -d ata -a /dev/device_name_of_your_disk

and search for a line starting with "193". It looks like this:

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 088 088 000 Old_age Always - 25082

If there is only an error message, your harddisk doesn't know S.M.A.R.T. 
and there is no danger. If you see the line, note the last number in the 
line. Issue the command again after about 10 minutes and compare the new 
counter value to the previous one. If there is a difference, read the 
bugreport and install the workaround mentioned there.

And don't forget to uninstall smartmontools - you don't need it for a 
desktop anyway.


Nils