Re: Getting Linux and XP to cooperate on the BIOS clock settings

On 2006-10-02, Scott Reese <sreese@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

46kmz5j02@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I have a dual-boot system, running XP Pro and Debian linux. After
switching from sarge to etch, I kept seeing a message on linux boot
about "Superblock last write time is in the future. Fix? yes".

The boot proceeds normally after that, but I don't like inexplicable
error messages, so I did some searching on the net. Apparently, it
had something to do with my bios clock being set to local time, rather
than UTC. The recommended "fix" was to set the bios clock to UTC,
which I did.

However, when running XP, my system clock will periodically reset itself
to the hardware clock, and the time jumps ahead four hours. This causes
problems with some audio recording I do in XP, as the program I use is
set to start at a certain time, and to split the audio file every hour.

I found some articles about an XP registry key called "RealTimeIsUniversal",
and I tried that, but it didn't help. I disabled the Windows Time Service,
since I use a third-party application to synchronize my system clock to
0.us.pool.ntp.org a few times per day, but something is still resetting
the system time to the bios clock every so often.

Is there a way I can get these two operating systems to agree on how to
set a clock?



Greetings:

In the past, it has been the case that Windows XP could not be set to
keep the computer's time as UTC time and do the calculations to display
the proper local time based on time zone. The may have recently changed
that, but it would have to be post-SP2.

With my dual-boot laptop, I have to set Debian to use local time rather
than UTC time (by setting UTC=no in /etc/default/rcS), then both systems
keep the local clock set to the local time.

Using this method, I am not seeing the error messages about the write
time on the superblock.

Good Luck

- -Scott



OK, I had it set for local time to begin with, and had set
UTC=no in /etc/default/rcS in order to get the "Superblock
last write time is in the future. Fix? yes" error message to
go away. I just put it back to "UTC=no", and the superblock
error is back.

However, I just noticed that the system "thinks" the BIOS
clock is set to UTC for part of the boot process, and then
"realizes" it is set to local time later in the boot sequence.

Here is an excerpt from my /var/log/boot:

Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: .
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: ^[%@Activating swap:swapon on /dev/hdc4
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: .
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: Will now check root file system:fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: [/sbin/fsck.ext3 (1) -- /] fsck.ext3 -y -C0 /dev/hdc3
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: Superblock last write time is in the future. Fix? yes
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006:
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: DEBIAN: clean, 195317/1916928 files, 1397898/3833510 blocks
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: .
Tue Oct 3 11:15:48 2006: Setting the system clock..
Tue Oct 3 15:15:50 2006: System Clock set. Local time: Tue Oct 3 15:15:50 EDT 2006.
Tue Oct 3 15:15:50 2006: Cleaning up ifupdown....


Is there some way to move the clock setting part to earlier in the boot?


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Relevant Pages

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