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Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?

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Old 01-17-2003, 10:02 PM   #1
moger
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Is my hard-drive bad?


I think my hard-drive is on its way out. It's not old, it's a 30 GB ATA 133 IDE hard drive. I didn't get it too long ago. Here's what's happening: Now and then programs won't launch, I occasionaly get IO errors (none of which I can remember), ext3 filesystem errors, forced fsck checks, etc. And when this happens, I hear shorts beeps that seem to be coming from the hard-drive. It's not real loud, but I can hear it. Has anyone heard of hard-drives beeping? I haven't..... And what I noticed is this happens more when I leave my computer on for hours....I come back and there's IO errors and crap. And after a reboot, the POST does not recognize the hard-drive. After about three reboots, the POST finally recognizes the hard-drive and I'm able to boot into Linux. It definately sounds like for some reason my hard-drive is bad. I'm curious to heard some other opinions. I'm considering going SCSI because it is more reliable.

*And let me also add, it's not a heating problem. I have a cooling fan on the hard-drive.

Last edited by moger; 01-17-2003 at 10:05 PM.
 
Old 01-17-2003, 10:28 PM   #2
mcleodnine
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A small, helpless clicking noise?
 
Old 01-17-2003, 10:58 PM   #3
moger
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Nope, not clicking noise. More like a beeping sound. I'm wondering is this is soemthing with the drive's S.M.A.R.T (self monitoring......) technology. Anyone know? And it's getting worse now, to the point where I had to shut it down and go on winblows. The exact error I got was something like this:

end_request: I/O error, dev 03:04(hda) Sector 386453....

And I got a bunch of those... each with another sector number.
 
Old 01-17-2003, 11:05 PM   #4
finegan
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You might want to try the utility badblocks, as well as smartd, that might tell you if its indeed the device that's going bad. Newer drivers actually have BIOS that might be sending beep codes.

Cheers,

Finegan
 
Old 01-18-2003, 01:05 AM   #5
moger
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I assume these are built in utilities. I'll look for em' and try it tomorrow. And will also let you know what if anything I come up with. Thanks.
 
Old 01-18-2003, 02:54 AM   #6
dnar
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Being ATA133, I assume this is a Maxtor drive? If so, prepare for a fatal failure soon! I had one do this just one month old....

Mine behaved like this for around 2 weeks, then fell over big time.

Last edited by dnar; 01-18-2003 at 02:55 AM.
 
Old 01-18-2003, 03:13 AM   #7
finegan
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I've got a Maxtor ATA100 40Gb that's been up for months, another that died in 3 months. I got a Quantum that arrived DOA and another that's been on the job for 2 years. I mean not more than 24 hours off in 2 years. Its always hit or miss, except of course if its one of those Fujitsus that were crippled out of the factory. Even if its the same ATA and disk size, it could have come from one of 5 fabs and most drive faults are manufacturing defects as opposed to engineering.

Cheers,

Finegan
 
Old 01-18-2003, 09:53 AM   #8
moger
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Quote:
Originally posted by dnar
Being ATA133, I assume this is a Maxtor drive? If so, prepare for a fatal failure soon! I had one do this just one month old....

Mine behaved like this for around 2 weeks, then fell over big time.
Yeah it is a Maxtor. And the last time I buy a Maxtor drive.
 
Old 01-18-2003, 02:19 PM   #9
moger
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Ok Well I tried running the badblocks command but it can never finish because about 5 minutes into it, I get I/O errors running accross my screen. And I do not have the smartd demon on my system. I hate Maxtor!
 
Old 01-18-2003, 02:38 PM   #10
dnar
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Don't try fixing the filesystem, you will only loose more data. Replace that drive ASAP. If you have any data on it that is not backed up, then I suggest leaveing it powered-off until you can pull off what you need. I can say for sure the drive will get worse quickly.
 
Old 01-18-2003, 02:42 PM   #11
moger
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Well I only tried using those commands to see what kind of things it would say. And yeah, obviously I will replace it.
 
  


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