Ok, here's the situation.

Just got a new server a couple weeks ago AMD64, popped a brand new SATA 500GB hard drive in it and have started cranking away on Mandriva 2009 plus an upgraded kernel to get VMware to play nice, not a big deal. Here's the problem:

Now and again(about 1-2x per week) my disk gets switched it read-only mode, causing me to do a hard reboot. . This has been happening repeatedly despite me running fsck.ext3 and receiving a clean bill of health or claiming that the issue has been repaired... so I chalk it up to Mandriva 2009 being unstable and decide I'm going to repartition and install Debian.

So I run the Ubuntu Live cd so I can run gparted, but while it's running the operation fails and falls into Read-only mode again.

Is there anything I can do to fix this drive/problem or should I just toss it and buy a new one?

thanks,
Rob

I had the exact same thing happen to me with a Seagate SATA 500 GB drive with Ubuntu-Server. Linux loaded just fine and I used it for about 2 weeks and then it started to have problems. I repaired the disk several times with fsck.ext3 and the bad sectors were blocked. More kept showing up so I sent the drive back to Seagate under warranty for a fix or replacement.

I replaced the drive with another new drive and it's been working without problem for over a month now.

Use your drive warranty if it's still effective. I buy only Seagate with 5 year warranties.

If its new its probably under warranty from the manufacturer and you can get it replaced.