Existing users, 
IOATAController messages - Alastair_Houghton_882
Indeed, we are aware that this problem has affected one or two customers. From the messages in the system log (particularly the "IOATAController device blocking bus" message), we believe this is a hardware issue.
It is most unfortunate in many respects, besides the obvious impact on our customers, we find that less knowledgeable users tend to blame us for such things, when in actuality this problem lies either in the hardware or in the device drivers supplied with OS X itself. From the perspective of our software, what has happened whenever we have seen this issue is that it has called an operating system function (usually 'pread()'), and the system simply never returns.
My colleague was attempting to look into this problem in depth at one point; I think he felt it might be a problem with a specific manufacturer's hard disks, although I'd have to check with him to be certain.
If you are affected by this issue, please do let us know, but make sure you include:
- The type of machine you were using.
- The type of connection to the disk in question (e.g. internal/external FireWire/external USB/external USB2).
- A System Profiler report (System Profiler is in /Applications/Utilities). This should tell us what type of disk it was.
We would very much like to know what it is that is causing this problem, although it could be anything from iffy power supply (perhaps affected customers are living in regions with badly regulated mains supply) though to bugs in Mac OS X, which is why it is difficult to track down. It may be something we can work around somehow in software, but there is a good chance that this isn't something with a software fix.
Monday, October 17 2005 @ 11:46 AM PDT
I should add - Alastair_Houghton_882
I've just checked back and it seems that my colleague was actually more inclined to think that it might be a problem with a third-party disk monitoring tool running in the background and interfering with the operating system's attempts to send commands to the disk. Apparently running in Safe Mode fixed the problem in at least one case.
So, to the list of things above that we might be interested in knowing if you have this problem, please add:
- Any installed SMART monitoring software.
- Any special disk driver software.
- Any disk utilities with "background protection" or similar features.
Monday, October 17 2005 @ 11:54 AM PDT
You are not alone with that problem! - june8
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Monday, October 17 2005 @ 11:19 AM PDT