Disk not ready for mounting ...

Sjonnie48 · 03-14-2011, 03:36 AM

For some time I'm experiencing difficulties with my hardware.

I have a music server running on Ubuntu10.04.

The mainboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P (http://www.gigabyte.com/search/searc...-ma790fxt-ud5p).

Problem #1:
Approx. four out of five times my dvd-rw is not available to the system.
If I wish to burn a cdrom, the computer has to be restarted three or four times before the dvd-rw is available.
But then it always works without a flaw.

Problem #2:
This morning after booting, the system started and displayed a message: "Disk sdf is not ready for mounting, press S to skip or M to fix the problem"
I pressed M and edited /etc/fstab, then continued to start-up.
Then I started Disk Utility. The harddisk sdf is clearly visible: it's a Samsung HD642JJ and according to three different Smart tests the disk is healthy.
But the harddisk is completely absent in the rest of the system. The blkid command does not report sdf, and 'fdisk -l' does not print anything about sdf.

As far as I have been able to test the hardware is healthy. All connections are in good condition, there are no loose connectors.
So after thinking about these problems I have a suspicion towards hald and/or the enumerator.
But I know very little about that technical stuff ...
I have attached the dmesg output.

Any expert's advice is welcome!

Kind regards.

camorri · 03-14-2011, 05:44 AM

I had a look at the dmesg output you posted. I see a lot of problems with UDMA. Also had a look at the specs on your Gigabyte system board. The HD's are sata, I believe they do not use DMA. What I'm not sure about, is the DVD drive, it may be IDE, and can use DMA.

What I would do, is go into the BIOS, turn off DMA and see what happens. It should have no effect on the Sata HD's. It may clear up the problems with the DVD.

To get into the BIOS, what the screen, before you get to grub2, there should be a prompt to press a key to enter BIOS setup.

Turning off UDMA will allow all drives to work. The only effect, could be a little slower response from the DVD drive.

Check the dmesg file after turning off UDMA, see if the errors reported go away.

I also saw on the Gigabyte site there are BIOS updates for your system. That can be a little unnerving to burn the BIOS, if you have no experience. Ive done it to my Gigabyte board, however I used to teach hardware PC fixing, so I have done it a few times.

This is the link to the BIOS updates.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...3005&dl=1#bios

Most of what is there seem to be CPU updates for newer CPU chips. I wouldn't think they would have much affect, to HD performance.

Post back what you find.

Sjonnie48 · 03-14-2011, 08:39 AM

Thank you for your reply. The computer has been down a few hours while I did some housekeeping. At boot I entered the BIOS setup.
There are no dma/udma entries for the harddisks.
After the system was ready for use I opened a root shell and invoked blkid. Here's the output:

Code:

blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="ffbcf8fa-7d22-4978-9cf0-109fa9f64f9e" TYPE="xfs" 
/dev/sdb1: UUID="bb5d1baf-0dde-4332-a122-101c4ca2bb42" TYPE="xfs" 
/dev/sdc1: UUID="73ddbd4e-d699-4e39-b95a-d4d9b309c41b" TYPE="xfs" 
/dev/sdd1: UUID="a443d86a-f776-48e4-b7a6-c9c446553e5b" TYPE="xfs" 
/dev/sde1: UUID="d7aacbf3-2f09-4c9b-992c-4d09092e2379" TYPE="xfs" 
/dev/sdf1: UUID="febb3c49-6910-4fab-9163-c1f4d4af3717" TYPE="xfs" 
/dev/sdg1: UUID="8d98a9e4-3469-4971-901c-5e377f495ec5" TYPE="xfs" 
/dev/sdg3: UUID="b5e4b8c4-e89e-4307-9480-91bc98fb4f99" TYPE="xfs" 
/dev/sdg5: UUID="f5ed376f-7470-4d1e-8d4e-44656b90218f" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/sdh1: LABEL="workdisk" UUID="e9a4dd76-7562-4647-a10b-d1d6f985b6a8" TYPE="xfs" 
#

As you can see sdf is present. This happened without any change in the BIOS. The dvd-rw (with sata interface) is also available and ready for use.
This is why I think that something else is the matter. These errors do not repeat every time, but in an unpredictable pattern. Slowly I'm beginning to believe in ghosts in my computer.
But fortunately I do not have to update the BIOS, I have already F7.

The new dmesg is a bit larger than the previous one, after setting the terminal memory to unlimited(!)

Kind regards.

camorri · 03-14-2011, 09:27 AM

The dmesg file this time looks normal. I didn't see any error in it.

Only other thought I have, is power supplies can cause intermittent errors. I suspect that is a new, or almost system. If the problems continue, I would be temped to take it back to the point of purchase, and see if they will swap out the power supply as part of their 'support'. Or even have them monitor it for a day or two to see if it fails at another site.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Sjonnie48 · 03-14-2011, 10:52 AM

Thanks for your efforts!

kind regards.

Sjonnie48 · 03-16-2011, 03:37 AM

This mouse has got a tail.
After my latest reply I got a brilliant idea: I replaced ubuntu 10.04 64-bit with its 32-bit sibling.
At once all the difficulties have vanished.
No matter how often I (re)start the computer, the dvd-rw is always available. Disks don't report imaginary errors anymore.
So after a few days of no problems I dare to think that the 64-bit os is to blame ...

camorri · 03-16-2011, 08:54 AM

Hmmm, interesting. I'm running Mandriva 2010.1 64 bit with out any problems as you have shown here.

The good news is there is not much of a performance hit going back to a 32 bit system, compared to a 64 bit system.