Another problem with HDD.
 

Hi there!
Tonight I was abused with something strange.
First I was watching some movie. Then there was a beep. And the next moment I can't create any file in /home directory (with a user) with a message saying that the filesystem is mounted read-only.
Ok, I thought. Let's kill gdm and make fsck. When gdm was killed on its terminal (7th) was following:
.
Next step was fsck with -MCa parameters. After some time passed (enough to check about 50% ofmy /home directory partiotion (/dev/sda5)) it said I'd better start fsck w/o -a paramter. On next boot I just made it. I did fsck -MC (w/o '-a').
It ran through many hard disk errors (as I understood).
Here is kern.log for that time:
And so on...
After seeing this I cleaned hard disk pins.

Kernel - 2.6.32
Distro - Debian Squeeze.

Thanks in advance.
Sorry for bad English.

This looks like a hardware error. I would recommend to test the disk with the manufacturer's diagnosis tool.

Ok. I'm going to test consistency of my HDD tonight.
But what could be the reason for such improper working of HDD?
Are there any recomends for HDD orientation (position, mounting, etc...) for it to work properly?
(I'm not good at formfactors and all this stuff, but I think my HDD is 2.5" (it laptop hdd) and it is SATA HDD).

Probably you should check the exact type and look around the web about that hard disk.

Sometimes HDDs just die. One of the reasons for always having a good backup plan.
I think that the manufacturer of your laptop will have taken care of the right orientation for the disk.

I still did not ran check on HDD (toomuch work I got tonight).

I mean - is it ok for hard disk to work not in horizontal position but in vertical? As I see it's no importance for electronics and the read-write heads are so lightweight that it's no difference for motors to push it down or pul it up while in vertical position (referred to move head left-right in horizontal position).

And again, sorry for bad English.

No need to apologize for your English.

If I remember correctly (I think I read something about that some years ago) it is pretty save to run disk vertically on the long side, but it should be avoided to run them upside down or vertically on the front side. I don't know if that is still true for modern disks.

That's too bad.
So, I'm waiting for weekend to check my hdd with gsmartcontrol.

Anyway, if I've passed fsck is it ok to use the HDD? As I understand there are some sort of bad blocks on it. I think any file system should have bad blocks registry for OS to know where it can write and where it should not.

I personally prefer the manufacturer's tools and use smartmontools only as a first indicator.

The problem lies deeper. Any disk has a few bad blocks, but the disk controller is able to recognize them and replace them with blocks from a part of the disk that's only purpose is to deliver spare blocks. If the harddrive starts to report bad blocks these spare blocks are already used up. The second problem is that, in most cases, once the disk has problems with bad blocks more and more of them appear.

So my advice would be:
1. Backup your data (which you should do anyways periodically).
2. Don't trust the disk until it is tested and known good.

Ok, I should do so.

That's too much info to backup for me (about 30Gb - no music, no videos, just my work and school docs)
But I'm doing it.

Till weekend I have to trust it, 'cause its too much work I have.

Thanks for advices.

try

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

as a good range of detection tools for hardware.

2) what journal system were you using?.....I suspect ext4

3) its good to set a check on a regular basis....tune2fs is the tool and I prefer 30 boots which means a weekly check for me.

but if you have important data.....why wouldn't you back up to another media????
and you 'should" do more regular fs checks

good luck

BTW if you only have 30G to backup.....an usb external hard drive it handle that easy peasy

Member Response
 

Hi,

I will add that when you change mount orientation for a drive that has been in use for sometime(depends on activity & type) that you can have potential compliance errors.

One should try to keep the drive in the original orientation that the filesystem was create in. Head attachment type will dictate the chance of errors when moved from vertical to horizontal or vice verse. This problem was relevant with older drive designs. Newer portable drives do not have the head gimble issues of older designs.

Look at the new designs for external HDD cases. Most designs will allow you to flip horizontal but cannot stand vertical unless you use a stand attachment (if provided, most are not including this attachment any longer). Older 3 1/2 externals would allow different orientation but the head assembly is a better design and the HDD are designed for the orientation changes. You pay $$ for this.
HTH!

I have its boot-flash.

No,it is ext3. When I was installing the system (actualy upgrading from "Lenny") I heard about ext4, but I also heard that it was some "buggy".So I did not choose it for '/home' directory.

Oh, it is set to 28 boots and half-year period. But the thing is that I rarely reboot the system.

I have only 8Gb stick. And it is all my backup for now.
But I also use Dropbox and I'm going to use google-drive and buy extaernal HDD.

You see, I look at any techincs so that there is no old tec for me. (yes, I still use zip-disks and diskettes at my desktop). So, how old drive designs do you mean (approximate year of design) saying 'older drive designs'.

Thanks for help.

Member Response
 

Hi,

HDD diagnostics do not care about the filesystem since this is not destructive test. Best to use the drive manufacturers diagnostic set if possible.

Filesystem maintenance is another story, use 'fsck'; on the unmounted filesystem and you should boot the system in single user mode or via LiveCD.

So, today I've checked my hard disk with DLG tool (it is for WD HDDs) with extended test and it showed no errors.
I didn't try to check HDD with gsmartcontrol.

Thanks to everyone who tried (and did) to help.