[SOLVED] Hard disk question.

sevs · 01-20-2012, 11:55 AM

Hello. I've got a problem with hard disk.
My computer was running good with debian linux installed. It worked 3 hours a day at much. It stand without a single boot for couple of weeks. Next time I booted I've got error from grub at stage 1.5. Rebooting gives me only another error.
Error I get before stage 1.5
Read error.

Errors at stage 1.5:
Error 18
Error 16

Errors after stage 1.5 (after menu, just before OS boot):
Error 18: selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
Error 16: inconsistent filesystem structure

I've thought about MBR fixing, LBA and rewriting boot loader. Though, I've got a flash drive with debian installer. I've started it in a rescue mode, mounted my /dev/sda1 as root fs and chrooted to it. Then I did following:

Code:

/usr/sbin/grub-install --force-lba /dev/sda

And then looking at 4th terminal (there was kernel messages) I saw following:

Code:

kernel: ata3.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6
kernel: ata3.00: BMDMA stat 0x26
kernel: ata3.00: failed command READ DMA
kernel: ata3.00: cmd c8/00:20:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 16384 in
kernel: ata3.00: res 51/84:0f:11:00:00/84:00:17:00:00/e0 Emask 0x30 (host bus error)
kernel: ata3.00: status: {DRDY ERR}
kernel: ata3.00: error: {ICRC ABRT}
kernel: ata3.00: soft resetting link
kernel: ata3.00: configured for UDMA/33
kernel: ata3.00: EH complete

And these strings a repeating (only number on strings of 'cmd' and 'res' are changing).
Hard disk is WDC WD 2000JS-60NCB1
BIOS data about HDD -
LBA - supported
block mode - 16 sectors
PIO mode - 4
Async DMA - multiword DMA-2
Ultra DMA - ultra DMA-5
SMART - supported

One more thing is that all data on the HDD is readable.
Filesystem check found no errors.

I'll appreciate any help or advice.
Thanks in advance.

Sorry for my broken English.

amani · 01-20-2012, 12:27 PM

1. update bios
2. set dma etc to auto if possible
use ahci

check cables too

you can check drive with 'gsmartcontrol' for all problems

post output of

#sdparm -I /dev/sda

or hdparm

H_TeXMeX_H · 01-20-2012, 12:37 PM

I would check the HDD for bad blocks, you can do this with

Code:

smartctl -t long /dev/sda

and wait until it finishes the test, or you can run the manufacturer's utility, probably on this disk:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

I would update the BIOS last, and NEVER from Window$.

amani · 01-20-2012, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H

I would check the HDD for bad blocks, you can do this with

But gsmartcontrol would be able to report the output of other options and the drive model is known to cause odd problems.

sevs · 01-25-2012, 07:24 AM

Thanks to everyone, helping me with this problem.
It has been a data cable connection issue.
The only question that is left - Why was data on the HDD readable, while bootloader was not? What is the difference between retrieve precedure of bootloader and regular data. (By and large - bootloader is ordinary data too. The difference is how we use it.).

Thanks in advance.

Sorry for my broken English.