# cannot format HDD



## dabbler (Jul 21, 2010)

First off: Hello everyone. I am very new, I've been using freebsd for a day now (although "trying to use freebsd" might be more accurate).  I have installed FreeNAS on an old Pentium II machine with 320MB or Memory, and a 4GB HDD.  I have managed to get everything up and running with a 1GB OS partition, 1GB Swap partition, and 2GB data partition.  But then who wants a file server with only 2GB of storage?  This is where my trouble starts.

I installed a cheap RAID card with a vt6421 chipset and no bios.  I attached a 1TB SATA HDD to the card.  When I rebooted the system there was a new entry in /dev:  ad6.  I assumed this was the new drive.  The drive was also correctly identified in the FreeNAS web GUI.  I was able to add the disk, but I was unable to format it.  When I try I get


```
ad6: TIMEOUT - READ_DMA retrying (1 retry left) LBA=128
ad6: TIMEOUT - READ_DMA retrying (1retry left) LBA=5645474
etc....
```

eventually it just detatches the drive and I reboot the system to get it back.


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## vivek (Jul 21, 2010)

Your error and workaround are listed below (search for DMA timeout on those pages):
http://wiki.freebsd.org/BugBusting/Commonly_reported_issues
http://wiki.freebsd.org/JeremyChadwick/ATA_issues_and_troubleshooting


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## dabbler (Jul 21, 2010)

thank-you.  I will get on it and let you know how it goes.


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## dabbler (Jul 21, 2010)

ok I check ou the above links.  I tried to modify my /dev/usr/local/smartd.conf, only to find out that I don't have one.  I was going to download this patch for FreeNAS 7:

http://freenas.svn.sourceforge.net/...-patches/ata/files/patch-ata.diff?view=markup

But the link isn't working right now.  I'll Keep trying, I just didn't want you to think that I had given up without reporting back. Thanks again.


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## dabbler (Jul 22, 2010)

well that patch doesn't seem to be coming back.  I tried using a nightly build, but that didn't work either.  i think i'll put this project on hold for now.


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