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a disk read error occurred

Hi,

while not being really a strict linux error, I get the feeling this is the right place to ask for help.

¨a disk read error occurred¨ appears on screen after choosing to boot into Windows XP from GRUB.

Code:

[root@localhost linux]# fdisk -lu



Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x48424841



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/sda1              63  204214271  102107104+  7  HPFS/NTFS

Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.

/dev/sda2      204214272  255606783    25696256  af  HFS / HFS+

Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

/dev/sda3      255606784  276488191    10440704    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.

/dev/sda4      276490179  312576704    18043263    5  Extended

/dev/sda5  *  276490240  286709759    5109760  83  Linux

/dev/sda6      286712118  310488254    11888068+  b  W95 FAT32

/dev/sda7      310488318  312576704    1044193+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

- sda is a 160GB hard disk with quite a few partitions and 3 OSes installed. I am able to boot into Linux and Mac OS fine, but not into Windows anymore. The Windows system is located on /dev/sda1.

I can not recall how exactly have I used testdisk but it once said that
¨The harddisk /dev/sda (160GB / 149 GB) seems too small! (< 172GB / 157GB)¨ or something simillar.
EDIT: this has been found out by performing a ¨deep search¨ on the affected partition. Second ¨deep search¨ yielded the same results.

So far I have tried to ¨fixboot¨ and ¨chkdsk¨ from a recovery console on the affected windows partition (/dev/sda1), the plug off power cord for 15 seconds trick, reinstalling GRUB, repairing the MFT and boot sector of the affected partition via testdisk, what next please ?

Thank you very much!

Quote:

Grub Error 25 : Disk read error
This error is returned if there is a disk read error when trying to
probe or read data from a particular disk.

Are you able to mount the windows partition from Linux and see files in /dev/sda1?

Things to do:
1) In a terminal, run "dmesg | grep -i error". If you see anything about the disk read error, post it here.
2) Inspect the log files in /var/log, looking for logs about the disk read error. Post information here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigrigdriver (Post 4202836)

Are you able to mount the windows partition from Linux and see files in /dev/sda1?

Hello, yes I am able to do so. From both Mac OS and Linux. Thanks for the suggestions below

Quote:

1) In a terminal, run "dmesg | grep -i error". If you see anything about the disk read error, post it here.

it spits:

Code:

[root@localhost testdisk-6.11.3]# dmesg | grep -i error

nForce2_smbus 0000:00:01.1: Error probing SMB2.

sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] 

sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error

end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1415160

Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 176895

sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] 

sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error

end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1415160

Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 176895

sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] 

sr 4:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error

end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1415160

Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 176895

I can´t really tell if sr0 is the faulty HDD though.

Quote:

2) Inspect the log files in /var/log, looking for logs about the disk read error. Post information here.

The errors above were present in a few log files. In /var/log/kernel/warnings.log there repeatedly appears the line

Code:

Dec 23 15:44:26 localhost kernel: sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 40x/40x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray

So maybe sr0 does not refer to the faulty HDD after all ?

/var/log/daemons/info.log has a few lines of:

Code:

Dec 24 11:20:08 localhost hald: mounted /dev/sdb1 on behalf of uid 0

Does it means that /dev/sda1 is mountable at the boot loading stage 2 (or 1.5) in GRUB ?

Code:

Dec 24 11:20:09 localhost ntfs-3g[3822]: Version 2010.3.6 external FUSE 28

Dec 24 11:20:09 localhost ntfs-3g[3822]: Mounted /dev/sda1 (Read-Write, label "", NTFS 3.1)

Dec 24 11:20:09 localhost ntfs-3g[3822]: Cmdline options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,locale=en_GB.UTF-8

Dec 24 11:20:09 localhost ntfs-3g[3822]: Mount options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,silent,allow_other,nonempty,relatime,fsname=/dev/sda1,blkdev,blksize=4096

Dec 24 11:20:09 localhost ntfs-3g[3822]: Ownership and permissions disabled, configuration type 1

Above is what a regular mount from dolphin looks like in the same log file. Thatś about everything relevant to me.

Thanks :)

Hi, I've been watching this thread, because My win7 partition packed up and left home.

I managed to recover what I wanted with testdisk, but the drive is stuffed!

Just wondering if it was a time-out (anti piracy code) or a Trojan!

Probably both!

Anyway, the drive is stuffed, But I lost not.

The hd circuit-board has been overheated (Magically), burning a chip, and destroying the drive as a boot device, or anything else (heaps of miss-reads and re-checking, add infinitum).

I admit I had a "copy" of win7 and was warned it may time-out. Beware!

Oh! Yeah, sr0 is you dvd/cdrom drive.

Regards Glenn

Try ranish maybe to see if partitions are correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro (Post 4203834)

Try ranish maybe to see if partitions are correct.

Ranish who ?

Are you referring to this by any chance ? (Obviously it has nothing to do with NTFS partitions - check the last release - 2002).

re-done a 'chkdsk c: /r' from windows recovery console, it still found something to fix. Then done it again 2 more times and it did not find anything wrong anymore. Did a fixboot again, then tried fixmbr for the first time - Windows stil not bootable, same error. I have dumped GRUB back to the MBR... same situation.

Can anyone recommend some NTFS tools that would run from linux / mac os ? I think I am chasing goats here...

I was thinking of the outcomes,

I'd be looking at recovery tools first, before the drive stops working.

The try to resurect it with other tools,

like dd to write zeros all over it and then try to start again.

Code:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdm bs=1M

(substitute device name, this one was in a usb sata caddie)

qtparted is a nice partition tool.

you'll need to reboot after making changes to the partition table,

and not doing so may corrupt it.

If you feel it's bad sectors on the disk,

read-up on dd_rhelp/dd_rescue

Best I've found

Testdisk to recover what ever is on the disk and save it as an .iso file

with this method you may work on the filesystem without the hardware (HDD)

Photorec (photo recovery) is a tool to recover specific file types.

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Dd_rescue

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplan...orials/6484/3/

http://linux.softpedia.com/progScree...hot-30608.html

You might find more on my blog.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlennsPref (Post 4205953)

Code:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdm bs=1M

I have tried pretty much each of those tools. DD was only used as a bootsector / MBR backup-restore utility though. And I have also attempted a level 4 recovery with Spinrite. Each and every tool failed to find anything wrong, so fixing it with such conventional tools is out of the question. I am going to try to learn a bit more about HDD geometry and then attempt to manually set CHS values, after all, ¨The harddisk /dev/sda (160GB / 149 GB) seems too small! (< 172GB / 157GB)¨ from the first post is all there is left to investigate.

Thanks

<edit>
I'd be looking at recovery tools first, before the drive stops working.
</edit>

I really don't know. I had 2 drives fail this last 2 weeks.

the last one that failed was about 4.5 years old (samsung).
the first one that failed was only 2 to 2.5 years old (WD).
I'm suspicious, .

now one of my other drives is making noises, and there's a squealing, at boot, coming from the computer.

regards Glenn

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlennsPref (Post 4206378)

On the same machine ? If so I be looking at main board problems.

Can also be a RAM issue, I would test it with Memtest86+ also.