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Hard Drive I/O Errors - Help


fuzzylizard
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I am getting the following errors showing up in /var/log/messages about every 5 - 20 seconds and I don't really understand what they mean.

 

Oct 18 21:55:16 Rivendell kernel: hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
Oct 18 21:55:16 Rivendell kernel: hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=89894191, sector=17039416
Oct 18 21:55:16 Rivendell kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 17039416
Oct 18 21:55:16 Rivendell kernel: EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,3)): ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read inode block - inode=1054725, block=2129927
Oct 18 21:55:16 Rivendell kernel: EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,3)) in ext3_reserve_inode_write: IO failure

 

In addition, I tried to reboot the server and was welcomed with a ton of disk errors. I did a manual fsck and simply selected the defaults when it asked to fix/ignore/save something. This took about an hour to run through.

 

I restarted the computer and everything seemed to be going fine, although I had lost some functionality. This lasted for about 10 minutes.

 

I tried the following command to see if there were any bad blocks on the drive:

 

$ /sbin/badblocks -v /dev/hda

 

This basically killed the drive. The entire computer became inactive. When I tried to switch to another console (ctrl-alt-1, 2,3,4,etc) all I got, on every screen, were the error listed above. I finally had to turn the machine off.

 

My next move is to pull the drive out, put it in another computer and run the Maxtor disk diagnostic tools on. (no floppy drive in the server).

 

Anyone have any idea as to what might be going on here.

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Just for an update on my little drive - I downloaded Knoppix and booted the computer using it. This allowed me to do a badblocks check independent of running the kernel.

 

I eventually stopped the check after what looked like several thousand bad blocks scrolled by in the console window. Needless to say, the drive is toast.

 

For anyone else in this situation, a great command for checking your drive is badblocks. It performs a non-destructive read of every block on your drive. If your drive is really bad, you may want to run it from something like Knoppix though. Here is the syntax

 

# /sbin/badblocks -v /dev/hda

 

or whatever drive you want to check

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Nice tip, thanks. But for checking a hard drive, I've found nothing better than the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utilities. All the majors have them freely downloadable on their websites. Typically, you get a file that when executed in windows creates a bootable floppy with the hard drive utilities on it. They come in very handy as most of them have a zero fill utility that can totally wipe the drive if it's completely borked. Also, if your returning the drive under warranty, most manufacturers ask that the defect is confirmed by their utilities before giving you an rma.

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Yep, I agree. In my case, the drive is no longer under warranty so there is no point in trying to return it. In addition, I don't have a floppy drive on the computer that has the drive. I will probably try the manufacturer's tools this weekend on the drive to see just how bad things really are.

 

If the drive is still under warranty, definitely run it through the diagnostic tools first. I have done this with other drives that have failed and it has always helped when it comes to getting them replaced.

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