Hard drive - dead or dying?

Hard drive - dead or dying?

[David Sumbler]

My computer (Ubuntu Feisty) would not boot correctly a few days
ago: it seemed to get into a loop with the following printed about
every 7 seconds (all laboriously copied in longhand, since it wasn't
logged!):

ata1.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
ata1.01: (BMDMA stat 0x65)
ata1.01: cmd c8/00:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 tag0 cdb 0x0 data 4096
in
         res 51/01:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 Emark 0x1 (device
error)
ata1.01: ata_hpa_resize 1: sectors = 78165360, hpa_sectors : 78165360
ata1.00: ata_hpa_resize 1: sectors = 160086528, hpa_sectors : 160086528
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33
ata1.01: ata_hpa_resize 1: sectors = 78165360, hpa_sectors : 78165360
ata1.01: configured for PIO3
ata1.01: EH complete

Periodically there would be other messages.

Most of this means nothing to me, but after several attempts I concluded
that ata1.00 probably refers to /dev/sda, and ata1.01 to /dev/sdb, and
that there was a fault with the second.

I disconnected the drive, and the computer booted OK.  I have now
commented out references to the partitions on /dev/sdb in /etc/fstab.

The drive in question was giving minor problems a couple of years ago,
and on advice I bought a new one, but kept the old one for backups
etc.  Until now, it seems to have behaved pretty well.

Can someone tell me this: has the drive now as-good-as died, or is there
any hope of resurrection?

David

-- 
David Sumbler <david@aeolia.co.uk>

Re: Hard drive - dead or dying?

[Mark Lord]

David Sumbler wrote:
> My computer (Ubuntu Feisty) would not boot correctly a few days
> ago: it seemed to get into a loop with the following printed about
> every 7 seconds (all laboriously copied in longhand, since it wasn't
> logged!):
> 
> ata1.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
> ata1.01: (BMDMA stat 0x65)
> ata1.01: cmd c8/00:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 tag0 cdb 0x0 data 4096
> in
>          res 51/01:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 Emark 0x1 (device error)

Use 'smartctl' to find out what the drive is having issues with.

-ml

Re: Hard drive - dead or dying?

[David Sumbler]

On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 09:35 -0400, Mark Lord wrote:
> David Sumbler wrote:
> > My computer (Ubuntu Feisty) would not boot correctly a few days
> > ago: it seemed to get into a loop with the following printed about
> > every 7 seconds (all laboriously copied in longhand, since it wasn't
> > logged!):
> > 
> > ata1.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
> > ata1.01: (BMDMA stat 0x65)
> > ata1.01: cmd c8/00:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 tag0 cdb 0x0 data 4096
> > in
> >          res 51/01:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 Emark 0x1 (device error)
> 
> Use 'smartctl' to find out what the drive is having issues with.

Unfortunately I cannot boot the computer unless the drive in question is
disconnected.

David

-- 
David Sumbler <david@aeolia.co.uk>

Re: Hard drive - dead or dying?

[Tejun Heo]

David Sumbler wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 09:35 -0400, Mark Lord wrote:
>> David Sumbler wrote:
>>> My computer (Ubuntu Feisty) would not boot correctly a few days
>>> ago: it seemed to get into a loop with the following printed about
>>> every 7 seconds (all laboriously copied in longhand, since it wasn't
>>> logged!):
>>>
>>> ata1.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
>>> ata1.01: (BMDMA stat 0x65)
>>> ata1.01: cmd c8/00:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 tag0 cdb 0x0 data 4096
>>> in
>>>          res 51/01:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 Emark 0x1 (device error)
>> Use 'smartctl' to find out what the drive is having issues with.
> 
> Unfortunately I cannot boot the computer unless the drive in question is
> disconnected.

Hmm... it might take some time but you should be able to.  Just don't
mount it during boot.  Partition code would still try to read partition
table which can cause some number of errors but it will eventually give
up and let you continue.

-- 
tejun