Kastus, thanks for your help.
Writeback cache on the disk drive has nothing to do with cache on the motherboard.
The error is caused by a missing feature in Maxtor drives. I interpret it as an informative message that kernel will not use writeback cache on the disk drive.
Do I understand you correctly? http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2004-Feb/0017.html The 8 MB cache on the Maxtor will be used and managed by the Maxtor's firmware, _however_ the linux kernel cannot flush the cache. It's up to the disk drive when to flush its cache. ? Is this correct ? If the above is correct so far: Could there be a problem (i.e. at shutdown) when the kernel cannot flush the cache and the drive will not flush the cache yet. If I completely misunderstand 'write back cacheing', can you explain in two sentences what 'write back cacheing' does? many thanks Markus