dangerous situation with shutdown process

[Joel Rees]

Comment from out in left field --

On 2005/07/16, at 6:03, Kevin Oberman wrote:
> [...]
> I believe that the Windows solution to this problem is to put a  
> really,
> really long delay between when the system is finished syncing and when
> the power is turned off.

That's what I vote for. If the system has ATA on it, send a line to  
the console that says

     waiting for ATA technology drives to quit lying

after the final sync, and then wait 30 seconds to cut power.

> This might be the best solution for FreeBSD, as
> well, but it will irritate people.

My impression is that in this case irritation is recommended.

(I'm half wondering if Microsoft and the drive manufacturer's haven't  
defined some hidden API for forcing the drive electronics to be  
truthful.)