[Fedora] Re: Failing drive?

Ashley M. Kirchner ashley at pcraft.com
Sat May 28 17:44:24 UTC 2005


Alexander Dalloz wrote:

>All "Pre-fail" entries should alarm you!
>  
>
    Okay, I did see those, however, I've had drives running for years in 
a 'pre-fail' state.  Recently I had a long talk with two technicians and 
one engineer at Western Digital and all of them confirmed that while in 
pre-fail state, a drive can (and will) continue to work till it reaches 
a complete failure.  However, it shouldn't randomly fail then work 
again, it either continues to work, or it shuts off.  Yes, I'm aware 
that those pre-fail values are all (very) high and indeed the drive is 
hitting its grave, but that still doesn't explain why the inconsistent 
behavior.  According to the engineer I talked to, when a drive fails, it 
fails, quit, done, crash.  It won't come back up after a reboot, and 
certainly not work for weeks at a time before failing again.  So, I'm 
puzzled.  At this point the drive's out and has been flung on the roof 
of the building to cook some more over summer.

-- 
W | I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.
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