VMDisk error: Write Protect is off

Linux and Unix-Like Red Hat
1

Hi Everyone,

I noticed this error message, on the console. I added a new drive recently. not sure to be considered is a serious warning message or not.

SCSI device sdc: 27262976 512-byte hdwr sectors 91
sdc: Write Proetect is off
sdc: cache data unavailable
sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0

and similar messages I have noticed on another Virtual machine.

Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel: SCSI device sdb: 62914560 512-byte hdwr sectors (32212 MB)
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel: sdb: cache data unavailable
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel: sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel:  sdb: sdb1
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel: SCSI device sdb: 62914560 512-byte hdwr sectors (32212 MB)
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel: sdb: cache data unavailable
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel: sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 30 14:37:07 HOSTNAME1 kernel:  sdb: sdb1
Jan 30 14:45:30 HOSTNAME1 kernel: kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
Jan 30 14:45:30 HOSTNAME1 kernel: EXT3 FS on dm-2, internal journal
Jan 30 14:45:30 HOSTNAME1 kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Jan 30 15:35:03 HOSTNAME1 yum: Updated: glibc-common-2.5-65.el5_7.1.x86_64

Thanks,

2

I don't see anything noteworthy or worrisome in those messages. The kernel prints lots of informative things which people don't usually care about on the off-chance that, if you do, you'll have them.

'write protect' in this context is a hard disk feature; you can set some drives read-only at the hardware level. So even if you move it to a different computer or boot from a livecd or something, it's still not writable. You're not using this feature, and probably don't want to. It might not even make sense in a virtual machine context, but Linux still uses the complete driver and shows the information. It doesn't actually say it's an error or even a warning, it's just informational. So, ignore it.

The fd0 error messages on the other hand would be important, if they were happening to anything you cared about. I think that's your floppy drive.