About
Comments on some of the odd stuff which comes into my life. I honestly don't see why people find this interesting, but clearly they do.

Subscribe
Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS.

My serious essays In addition to my babbling here, I do write serious essays on serious topics. You can read the current stuff as a blog, or look at some of the more popular essays in an archive.

Links
These are a few of my favourite links.

FreeAgent drive fix for non-VISTA OS (21:15)

Fixing the FreeAgent (Seagate) drive for Linux

# the drive reports something like this
$ sudo sdparm -a /dev/sde
    /dev/sde: Seagate   FreeAgent Pro  400A
Power condition mode page:
  IDLE        0  [cha: n, def:  0, sav:  0]
  STANDBY     1  [cha: y, def:  1, sav:  1]
  ICT         0  [cha: n, def:  0, sav:  0]
  SCT       9000  [cha: y, def:9000, sav:9000]
# when the drive was idled I got the following error message.
$ sudo sdparm --clear STANDBY -6 /dev/sde
    /dev/sde: Seagate   FreeAgent Pro  400A
change_mode_page: failed setting page: Power condition
# this appears to force the drive to start
$ sudo sdparm --command=start /dev/sde
# and now this command works
$ sudo sdparm --clear STANDBY -6 /dev/sde
$ sudo sdparm -a /dev/sde
    /dev/sde: Seagate   FreeAgent Pro  400A
Power condition mode page:
  IDLE        0  [cha: n, def:  0, sav:  0]
  STANDBY     0  [cha: n, def:  1, sav:  0]
  ICT         0  [cha: n, def:  0, sav:  0]
  SCT         0  [cha: n, def:9000, sav:  0]

sdparm  --defaults --page=po -6 --save /dev/sdb

[/2007/12/11] permanent link