Drive access very slow

From: Michael Gass (mgass_at_localhost.localdomain)
Date: 05/19/04 

Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 14:48:26 GMT

Installed Red Hat 9 on a Pentium III (733 Mhz) with 256 ram.
Dual boot set up with Windows 98 on hda1. The linux boot up is
very slow - around 20 mins. (Windows 98 boots up and runs normally).
Once linux is up it is very slow - just bringing up vi takes
around 40 seconds - even at the console and without X running.

I think that hdparm might indicate the problem. As you can
see below, the timing buffered disk reads are ridiculous.
The below readings were done at the console without X.

hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.87 seconds =147.13 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 134.43 seconds =487.51 kB/sec

I ran the above multiple times and all were about the same.

Ran smartctl and the disk seems OK.

I am at a loss as to what to do. Could it be that my IDE controller
(listed below) is not configured correctly with the kernel or
drive?

Here is more info.

IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801BA IDE U100 (rev 01)
(prog-if 80 [Master])
        Subsystem: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 2411
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
        I/O ports at 2460 [size=16]

hdparm

/dev/hda:
 multcount = 16 (on)
 IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq = 0 (off)
 using_dma = 1 (on)
 keepsettings = 0 (off)
 readonly = 0 (off)
 readahead = 8 (on)
 geometry = 1292/240/63, sectors = 19541088, start = 0

hdparm -i

/dev/hda:

 Model=Maxtor 51024H2, FwRev=DAC10SC0, SerialNo=K21CZWCC
 Config={ Fixed }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=57
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=19541088
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 0: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Can anyone help me out with this.

Michael Gass
mgass@cloudnet.com