I've found Western Digital's TLER feature to be very useful. There is a Dos-based utility for tweaking the settings. It looks to me like Samsung's CCTL and Seagate's ERC are basically the same thing, but I have had no luck locating utilities for them.

Anyone know of such a thing?

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

For doing what? Mhdd can handle the common config. settings perfectly. Otherwise you should deal with firmware...it depends on what parameter you want to work on. Usually AAM, HPA,SECURITY, LBA48 and a few other are sufficient.

Would greatly appreciate any help in this. Does anyone know the command or how to set/enable ERC (similar to TLER/CCTL) timeout on 7200.11 drives through the rs232 or sata connection? This may or may not help out with long pauses some 7200.11 users are experiencing, and would definitely help out RAID 5 users like myself (a little wary of setting up a 8x1.5tb R5 with no erc timeout). I've looked through the rs232 command list and wasn't able to find anything (its noted that this command list is not 100% complete). Perhaps someone saw something I missed, knows how to enable this, or just to point me in the right direction?

...and MHDD doesn't seem to be able to enable this.

Thanks for any help!

meow

MHDD has no idea about these features.

WDC gives out a tool to set this feature.

I would like to see one for Hitachi.

Wasn't sure if I was clear, but I would like to set ERC on Seagate 7200.11 drives. If anyone has any information about it please chime in.

In my looking around it seems that for Samsung drives, at least, this feature is simply present (and activated) or not present depending on which drive model is purchased (i.e. F1 drives do not have it, F1R drives do).

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Sorry to drag up an old thread.

You need to issue the appropriate SMART command to the drive.

See http://www.t13.org/Documents/UploadedDocuments/docs2005/DT1701r5-SCT.pdf - 5.3 Error Recovery Control command

I recently contacted the author of HDAT2 and he has graciously added an Error Recovery Control Menu to the latest version (4.7) of his software.

He has asked me to test it. Unfortunately I do not have the means to do so.

See http://www.hdat2.com/

I can test it if someone can explain exactly how to do it.

I actually tried HDAT2 with a Samsung HD502HJ because a drive keeps getting kicked out of a 4 drive RAID 10 on a GA-EX58-UD5 motherboard (ICH10R). I replaced the drive the first time it happened but when the replacement did the same thing a week later, I did more research and began looking into the CCTL function.

I ran the CD iso version of HDAT2 and found the menu for the Error Recovery Control. I tried setting the time to 7000ms (7 seconds) and I think it took but I also saw what appeared to be an error. The result showed something changed and the 7 second setting remained after a reboot. I just don't know what that error was. Since this was all under the SMART menu and part of the SMART spec, I decided to reset it to 0 (disabled) and try turning SMART on in the BIOS. I thought that might allow the RAID controller to enable the Error Recovery Control (or CCTL).

If things go bad again, I'm going to try setting all 4 to 7 seconds.

Does anyone know how, exactly, to issue the commands needed to change TLER/CCTL/ERC? I'm thinking of purchasing a USB to TTL adapter so I can update some 2TB Seagate drives. I'd then connect the USB end to my PC and the other end to the TTL connection (4 little pins on the back of the hard drive), load up a terminal program like Putty, and issue the commands. But I don't know what commands to issue. The documentation that's been posted is extremely verbose and not very user-friendly. Is anyone able to translate them into layman's terms?

http://sites.google.com/site/seagatefix/Home also shows a way to make a RS232-to-TTL adapter (if your computer has a serial port) for under $10. Maybe someone wants to try that.

The TLER/CCTL/ERC commands are sent via the ATA/ATAPI interface. No serial connection is required.

You can use HDAT2:
http://www.hdat2.com/

The ERC commands are documented in the following document.

Working Draft AT Attachment 8 - ATA/ATAPI Command Set (ATA8-ACS):
http://www.t13.org/Documents/UploadedDo ... A8-ACS.pdf

Are the changes made by HDAT2 persistent? I was under the impression you'd lose any settings as soon as the drive is powered on, which would be a major PITA.

I've skimmed through that document, and read the section "8.3.4 SCT Error Recovery Control Command" but I'm still confused about how to actually set these values. So I'd make a serial connection, then open a terminal program and connect to the hard drive. What would I do to then set a new value? Lets say I wanted to set a time limit of 7 seconds.



I take it Word 3 "Recovery Time Limit" is the value I want to change (to "70" for 7 seconds). But what commands do I have to enter to get to this point? Thanks for any help.

All ATA commands, including the ERC command set, are sent via the industry standard ATA interface, not via a proprietary vendor specific serial interface.

You may be able to send an ERC-like command via the serial terminal, but others will tell you if that's possible. I don't know.

If the ERC setting doesn't survive a power cycle, then you will need some automated method of issuing it at every boot. The way you go about this will depend on your OS, and whether your drive is part of a RAID.

Here is a potential solution for Linux users:
http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~greg/projects/erc/

Thanks for the info, I guess that would explain why WDTLER.exe is (or was) able to change ERC over the ATA interface.

Is whether or not the ERC setting survives a power cycle dependent on the drive firmware, or the software used to change it? For example, why is WDTLER.exe able to change the ERC setting that survives power cycles, but HDAT2 is not? Aren't the commands issued the same for both programs?

I suspect that WD may use some proprietary, vendor specific ATA commands, whereas HDAT2 appears to be limited to standard ATA commands.

In any case, it would probably be up to the HD manufacturer to decide whether changes are volatile or non-volatile, so ultimately it would have to be a firmware issue.