Re: [PLUG] advice on kernel errors?

[Stephen Gran <steve@lobefin.net>]

On Fri, Jul 01, 2005 at 06:57:13AM -0400, Jeff Abrahamson said:
> Tuesday morning I started getting errors that look like these in
> kern.log.  The disk hdb has one partition, /home/.  The volume is
> formatted ext3.
> 
>   Jun 27 07:53:03 asterix kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
>   Jun 27 07:53:03 asterix kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=260867239, high=15, low=9208999, s
>   ector=260867239
>   Jun 27 07:53:03 asterix kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdb, sector 260867239
>   Jun 27 07:53:04 asterix kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
>   Jun 27 07:53:04 asterix kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=260867239, high=15, low=9208999, s
>   ector=260867239
>   Jun 27 07:53:04 asterix kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdb, sector 260867239
> 
> It's possible that this is related to a power failure.  On reboot,
> dmesg didn't report any problems besides fsck'ing the drives.  A few
> days later, the kernel remounted /home/ read-only.  Checking the logs,
> there had been occasional errors for a couple days.  I'm not sure
> exactly what the time sequence was.
> 
> I'm keenly aware that a previous drive failed on hdb last Fall.  (This
> drive is a new replacement.)  The errors at that time were similar.
> 
> I'm curious what others think.  Is umount, fsck, and mount likely to
> help?  Or does this look like hardware failure?  Can I trust the IDE
> controller, given that another drive failed on it eight months ago?
> 
> What I want to avoid is buying a new drive if the most likely outcome
> is a similar failure in half a year.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

There is an old joke:
when you get { MessagesLikeThisFromYourHardDrive }
it either means { TheDriverIsScrewy } or
{ YourDriveIsFlakingOut BackUpYourDataBeforeIt'sTooLate PrayToGod }

So, since this is the second hdb failure in a short time, I lean towards
TheDriverIsScrewy.  Is this an old motherboard with new disks?
Sometimes the DMA stuff doesn't work perfectly when the drives want
different DMA settings than what the board can support.  Or maybe you
just have a bad cable?  Not sure.
-- 
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|  Stephen Gran                  | love,  n.:  Love ties in a knot in the  |
|  steve@lobefin.net             | end of the rope.                        |
|  http://www.lobefin.net/~steve |                                         |
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