Hard Drive Error Disk or Motherboard?

[Tony Nelson]

At 10:26 PM +0000 11/21/06, Paul Ward wrote:
>Just got home ffrom work and thought I'd check over my server.
>
>I noticed in the messages I am still getting errors.
>
>The /dev/hdc disk is the one that I was having trouble with however I
>am getting errors on another disk I was using for backing up the data
>from the faulty drive to.
>
>Nov 21 16:32:17 test-fc6 smartd[2484]: Device: /dev/hdd, 1 Currently
>unreadable (pending) sectors
>Nov 21 16:32:17 test-fc6 smartd[2484]: Device: /dev/hdd, 1 Offline
>uncorrectable sectors
>Nov 21 17:02:16 test-fc6 smartd[2484]: Device: /dev/hdc, 1 Currently
>unreadable (pending) sectors
>Nov 21 17:02:17 test-fc6 smartd[2484]: Device: /dev/hdd, 1 Currently
>unreadable (pending) sectors
>Nov 21 17:02:17 test-fc6 smartd[2484]: Device: /dev/hdd, 1 Offline
>uncorrectable sectors
>Nov 21 17:11:44 test-fc6 kernel: kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5
>seconds
>Nov 21 17:11:44 test-fc6 kernel: EXT3 FS on hdc2, internal journal
>Nov 21 17:11:44 test-fc6 kernel: EXT3-fs: hdc2: 5 orphan inodes deleted
>Nov 21 17:11:44 test-fc6 kernel: EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
>Nov 21 17:11:44 test-fc6 kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with
>ordered data mode.
>
>Can anyone explain a way totest these disk so I can be sure they are
>not corrupt.
>
>Should I use fsck or testdisk? Also what syntax would provide best
>results, or are there any better utils?
 ...

Fsck will only test the small part of the disk that contains the filesystem
metadata.

Testdisk appears to be for other purposes.

The badblocks command would be more appropriate, as would be e2fsck -c or
dd'ing the entire drive device to /dev/null.

On modern hard drives, bad blocks are fixed by writing to them, at which
time the drive will re-map that block to a good spare.

Usually the difficulty is figuring out which file has the hole in it.

SMART can monitor and report the health of a drive, and can make it scan
continuously, which improves the chances that the drive will notice a
failing sector in time to save its data and re-map it if needed.  See man
smartctl.

As Alan says, drives sharing a cable can interfere with each other,
especially if one is failing.  If you have enough cables, you might try
separating the drives.  This will change the moved drive's device ID and
will probably need some sorting out.
-- 
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TonyN.:'    The Great Writ     <mailto:tonynelson at georgeanelson.com>
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