Hard drive sector errors

crathm · 12-08-2008, 12:55 PM

Hello everyone,

I've noticed in my error logs that that I've been getting some bad sectors. This error seems to be spamming my log almost 30 times a day so it had been really catching my attention. Ive tried googling the error message but I really don't understand the solutions. I believe there might even be a previous post on this site about it. Either way, this is the message im getting.

Dec 8 13:46:48 LinuxServer smartd[7816]: Device: /dev/hda, 238 Offline uncorrectable sectors

I've read the man pages on both fsck and mkfs (using the -c argument, but that seems to only apply when creating a new file system) and am scared to fry my system experimenting with them.

Now what im curious is two things. Can I use a safe utility without unmounting devices to either fix or at least isolate those sectors so that the system can stop displaying that message?

Or should I just accept that message as a warning that my system is slowly on its way to hard drive heaven?

Thanks,

crathm

TB0ne · 12-08-2008, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crathm

Or should I just accept that message as a warning that my system is slowly on its way to hard drive heaven?

Yes, your hard drive is dying. Ignoring/filtering the messages out is not a good fix.

crathm · 12-08-2008, 07:40 PM

I figured, I was doing some research on the e2fsck command and (from what I understand) it is supposed to detect and possibly fix back blocks.
as root i tried running "e2fsck -pv /dev/hda" and it gives me:

"e2fsck: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/hda
Filesystem mounted or opened exclusively by another program?"

now reading the man page i noticed that if the command runs and i get an exit code of 2... that means the file system errors were corrected, should be restarted if the file system was mounted...doesnt that mean i can run this command on a mounted file system?

Either way, would this command help me band aid my situation until i can get myself a new hard drive?

onebuck · 12-09-2008, 05:59 AM

Hi,

Any 'fsck' maintenance should be performed on a unmounted filesystem as a 'single user' too prevent someone else from accessing the filesystem. You could use your install cd/dvd to boot or a LiveCD that will allow you to perform the filesystem maintenance. Don't mount the filesystem in question. From the cli;

Code:

~#fsck -y /dev/your_dev_File_partition  #filesystem too repair

Code:

excerpt from 'man fsck';
NAME
       fsck - check and repair a Linux file system

SYNOPSIS
       fsck  [  -sAVRTMNP  ] [ -C [ fd ] ] [ -t fstype ] [filesys ... ] [--] [
       fs-specific-options ]

DESCRIPTION
       fsck is used to check and optionally repair one or more Linux file sys-
       tems.   filesys  can  be  a device name (e.g.  /dev/hdc1, /dev/sdb2), a
       mount point (e.g.  /, /usr, /home), or an ext2 label or UUID  specifier
       (e.g.   UUID=8868abf6-88c5-4a83-98b8-bfc24057f7bd or LABEL=root).  Nor-
       mally, the fsck program will try to  handle  filesystems  on  different
       physical  disk  drives  in  parallel to reduce the total amount of time
       needed to check all of the filesystems.

       If no filesystems are specified on the command line, and the -A  option
       is  not  specified,  fsck  will  default  to  checking  filesystems  in
       /etc/fstab serially.  This is equivalent to the -As options.

Code:

excerpt from 'man e2fsck';

NAME
       e2fsck - check a Linux ext2/ext3 file system

SYNOPSIS
       e2fsck [ -pacnyrdfkvstDFSV ] [ -b superblock ] [ -B blocksize ] [ -l|-L
       bad_blocks_file  ]  [  -C  fd  ]  [  -j   external-journal   ]   [   -E
       extended_options ] device

DESCRIPTION
       e2fsck  is  used to check a Linux second extended file system (ext2fs).
       E2fsck also supports ext2 filesystems containing a journal,  which  are
       also sometimes known as ext3 filesystems, by first applying the journal
       to the filesystem before  continuing  with  normal  e2fsck  processing.
       After  the  journal  has  been  applied,  a filesystem will normally be
       marked as clean.  Hence, for ext3 filesystems, e2fsck will normally run
       the  journal  and  exit,  unless  its superblock indicates that further
       checking is required.

       device is  the  device  file  where  the  filesystem  is  stored  (e.g.
       /dev/hdc1).

Read the 'man fsck' and 'man e2fsck' to understand the commands.