harddisk does not exist, but it exists!

Sjonnie48 · 07-22-2008, 01:35 AM

Hi,

My computer has an Asus P5LD2 motherboard.
This mobo has an Intel Sata controller, and an ITE 8211F IDE controller.
The Sata controller is not yet in use, all of my disks are pata.
The ITE controller has 2 udma channels. The harddisks are detected during boot, and there is no bios-entry for the ITE controller.

There are four harddisks connected, all different of age, size and speed.

Code:


Primary master: 	Suse 11		sda
Primary slave:  	storage		sdb
Secondary master:	Kubuntu 8.04	sdc
Secondary slave:	storage		sdd

With Kubuntu 8.04 there occurs a problem: during the start it reports that the secondary slave does not exist, although I can see it was detected during boot.
This does not happen with every start, it is unpredictable when it will happen.
The same problem occurred with Kubuntu 7.10, but with Suse this problem has never occurred.
When it happens I can see that /etc/mtab misses the line specifying sdd, although /etc/fstab contains a line for sdd.

Because it only happens with Kubuntu I presume that this could be some kind of a bug.

I'd like to get some suggestions what may cause this problem.

pixellany · 07-22-2008, 07:05 AM

fstab will always have the same entries--it is the config file that specifies what is to be mounted. mtab specifies what is actually mounted.

When you boot up and sdd does NOT mount, try fdisk -l to see if it is recognized. If so, try to mount it manually. Also, look at the logs for error messages to show WHY it did not mount.

Sjonnie48 · 07-22-2008, 07:58 AM

The disk sdd is not found by fsck during startup.
During boot I always see 4 disks being detected by the bios.
During the fsck-phase I see a line roll over my screen which tells me that "...sdd does not exist", but it's going too fast to read the entire line.
So the question is not why the disk was not mounted, but what happened between the disk-detection during boot and fsck.
And again, with Suse this does not happen, only with the latest two Kubuntu releases.

pixellany · 07-22-2008, 08:03 AM

Once it is up and running, will fdisk find all the drives?

What happens if you run fsck after bootup?

Does fsck require that a filesystem be installed? (fdisk does not.)

Sjonnie48 · 07-23-2008, 04:56 AM

Here is what I get after starting up. I think I have found a reason for the absence of sdd:

Code:

#dmesg | grep sdd
[   33.779572] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] 156301488 512-byte hardware sectors (80026 MB)
[   33.779590] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[   33.779593] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[   33.779622] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[   33.779689] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] 156301488 512-byte hardware sectors (80026 MB)
[   33.779707] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[   33.779710] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[   33.779739] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[   33.779744]  sdd:<3>ata2.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2
[   35.072715] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
[   35.072720] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor]
[   35.072751] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Add. Sense: Scsi parity error
[   35.072756] end_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 0
[   35.072759] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 0
[   35.499316] Dev sdd: unable to read RDB block 0
[   35.499396] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] 156301488 512-byte hardware sectors (80026 MB)
[   35.499561] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[   35.499565] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[   35.499596] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[   35.499683] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] 156301488 512-byte hardware sectors (80026 MB)
[   35.499696] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[   35.499698] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[   35.499719] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[   35.499781] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
[   37.249397] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] 156301488 512-byte hardware sectors (80026 MB)
[   37.249611] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[   37.249614] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[   37.298578] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[   37.368127] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] 156301488 512-byte hardware sectors (80026 MB)
[   37.368141] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[   37.368144] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[   37.368166] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA

pixellany · 07-23-2008, 11:57 AM

A. I'm not sure what in that output leads you to any conclusion about your issue.

B. You have not answered my questions and I don't know if you still have a problem.

Sjonnie48 · 07-23-2008, 04:00 PM

To answer question A:

Code:

[   33.779744]  sdd:<3>ata2.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2
[   35.072715] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
[   35.072720] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor]
[   35.072751] sd 1:0:1:0: [sdd] Add. Sense: Scsi parity error
[   35.072756] end_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 0
[   35.072759] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 0
[   35.499316] Dev sdd: unable to read RDB block 0

The above quoted error messages indicate that there is probably a hardware problem, Scsi parity error.
If sdd is mounted properly this block of error messages is not present.

I had not thought of checking with dmesg before.
The disk in question is my oldest harddisk, I migrated it from my old computer where it was continuously active for over six years.

To finally answer question B: the problem is solved.

Thank you for your effort.

dasy2k1 · 07-24-2008, 08:57 AM

could it be that the jumber on sdd is set to master or cable select?

i have found that cable select does not work with most *nixes

Sjonnie48 · 07-24-2008, 09:14 AM

It's set to slave mode by jumpers.

r11_kaede · 07-26-2008, 03:18 AM

hi there. i somewhat have the same problem (i think). after installing ubuntu on my laptop, 20 gbs of my harddisk mysteriously disappeared. I believe they were partitioned into Fat32, but strangely enough, they cant be mounted.

i'm not exactly sure how to use mtab and fstab, but when i use fsck, the following appears.

fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
fsck.ext3: Unable to resolve 'UUID=f52d753b-2d5c-4029-92e0-5e9cd44ff7f8'

---------

So there lies my problem. sorry if i didn't give enough info, but i'm still new to linux, so i'm not sure of commands and stuff.

thanks all.

Sjonnie48 · 07-26-2008, 07:45 AM

Quote:

i somewhat have the same problem (i think)

No, you don't.

What you can do is supply us with the contents from fstab and mtab.
To get these open a terminal and change directory to /etc.
Then invoke more mtab fstab.

Mtab is a dynamic file that contains all the info about mounted filesystems such as mountpoint, filesystem and if it is read/write.
Fstab is a static file that contains info about the filesystems that are available on your computer.
But please wrap code tags around the data, use the # in the toolbar above.

r11_kaede · 07-29-2008, 04:34 AM

Code:

::::::::::::::
mtab
::::::::::::::
/dev/sda1 / ext3 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/sys /sys sysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
varrun /var/run tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755 0 0
varlock /var/lock tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0
devshm /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
lrm /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile tmpfs rw 0 0
securityfs /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw 0 0
gvfs-fuse-daemon /home/raymond/.gvfs fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon rw,nosuid,nodev,user=
raymond 0 0
::::::::::::::
fstab
::::::::::::::
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=a56220f0-2a25-4235-9cfc-14406cc9ce30 /               ext3    relatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=52d11fff-2c2c-4d2f-a222-b134bed4c974 none            swap    sw

0 0

Hi there.

Above is what i got from more mtab fstab

I'm not sure if i did the code wrap right, hopefully i did, do forgive me if i didnt.

many thanks