Hello,
What if the HDD was working (led on) and then I pause the debugged machine.
Usually the leds will still be ON (as if the HDD has frozen its activity)
and the machine freeze while I debug it.
Is this healthy for the HDD?
Regards,
Elias
On off states of LEDs is highly deterministic. I suspect that the LED only
tells you, “Hey summpin happened on the HDD” and by time you physically SEE
the LED the activity that caused it is LONG passed. Human vision response is
something on the order of 40 ms, less than that and you can’t see it and 40
ms to a modern HDD or computer is a life time. So, I would fairly safely
assume that what happened is that the LED got turned on and the system was
interrupted before the LED turned off, but the HDD was not locked up in some
loop that would cause damage. I see this all the time in debugging device
drivers and setting breakpoints.
–
Gary G. Little
Seagate Technologies, LLC
“lallous” wrote in message news:xxxxx@windbg…
>
> Hello,
>
> What if the HDD was working (led on) and then I pause the debugged
machine.
> Usually the leds will still be ON (as if the HDD has frozen its activity)
> and the machine freeze while I debug it.
>
> Is this healthy for the HDD?
>
> Regards,
> Elias
>
>
>
>
So it is okay then?
Even though the HDD might also produce some sounds while writing?
I don’t really mean that HDD leds are ON, but just worried that I got the
HDD stuck in a loop (as you described) while I interrupted it at any
time…
What is the worst that can happen if I do interrupt and hold it in a bad
time?
(sometimes to loose this, I set a BP on the next ASM instruction and run
then directly return to tracing but HDD has his activities performed).
Regards,
Elias
“Gary G. Little” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@windbg…
>
> On off states of LEDs is highly deterministic. I suspect that the LED only
> tells you, “Hey summpin happened on the HDD” and by time you physically
SEE
> the LED the activity that caused it is LONG passed. Human vision response
is
> something on the order of 40 ms, less than that and you can’t see it and
40
> ms to a modern HDD or computer is a life time. So, I would fairly safely
> assume that what happened is that the LED got turned on and the system was
> interrupted before the LED turned off, but the HDD was not locked up in
some
> loop that would cause damage. I see this all the time in debugging device
> drivers and setting breakpoints.
>
> –
> Gary G. Little
> Seagate Technologies, LLC
>
> “lallous” wrote in message news:xxxxx@windbg…
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > What if the HDD was working (led on) and then I pause the debugged
> machine.
> > Usually the leds will still be ON (as if the HDD has frozen its
activity)
> > and the machine freeze while I debug it.
> >
> > Is this healthy for the HDD?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Elias
> >
> >
> >
> >
I can’t guarantee nothing bad will happen, but in 30 years I have never
hosed a drive in this manner. I have hosed drives … but not by stepping
through drive control code. Typically you set up a set of control registers
specifying location and length and a “do it” command. I am not aware of a
command in ATA-6, or even in SCSI where you send a command that starts a
destructive command on the drive and then have to send another command to
stop it from destroying the drive. That would be extremely foolish since
your end-point could really only be consistent in a real time OS and
NT/2K/XP aint real time.
–
Gary G. Little
Seagate Technologies, LLC
“lallous” wrote in message news:xxxxx@windbg…
>
> So it is okay then?
> Even though the HDD might also produce some sounds while writing?
> I don’t really mean that HDD leds are ON, but just worried that I got the
> HDD stuck in a loop (as you described) while I interrupted it at any
> time…
>
> What is the worst that can happen if I do interrupt and hold it in a bad
> time?
>
> (sometimes to loose this, I set a BP on the next ASM instruction and run
> then directly return to tracing but HDD has his activities performed).
>
> Regards,
> Elias
> “Gary G. Little” wrote in message
> news:xxxxx@windbg…
> >
> > On off states of LEDs is highly deterministic. I suspect that the LED
only
> > tells you, “Hey summpin happened on the HDD” and by time you physically
> SEE
> > the LED the activity that caused it is LONG passed. Human vision
response
> is
> > something on the order of 40 ms, less than that and you can’t see it and
> 40
> > ms to a modern HDD or computer is a life time. So, I would fairly
safely
> > assume that what happened is that the LED got turned on and the system
was
> > interrupted before the LED turned off, but the HDD was not locked up in
> some
> > loop that would cause damage. I see this all the time in debugging
device
> > drivers and setting breakpoints.
> >
> > –
> > Gary G. Little
> > Seagate Technologies, LLC
> >
> > “lallous” wrote in message news:xxxxx@windbg…
> > >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > What if the HDD was working (led on) and then I pause the debugged
> > machine.
> > > Usually the leds will still be ON (as if the HDD has frozen its
> activity)
> > > and the machine freeze while I debug it.
> > >
> > > Is this healthy for the HDD?
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Elias
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
>
>
>