[PLUG] advice on kernel errors?

[Jeff Abrahamson <jeff@purple.com>]

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.

-- 
 Jeff

 Jeff Abrahamson  <http://www.purple.com/jeff/>    +1 215/837-2287
 GPG fingerprint: 1A1A BA95 D082 A558 A276  63C6 16BF 8C4C 0D1D AE4B

** NOTE ** Please use this temporary address
   (purple@krypton.cs.drexel.edu) until mid-July.  All mail sent to
   jeff@purple.com and jeffa@cs.drexel.edu will be received and queued
   for me, but I don't have easy access until mid-July.

   This address will go away in late July.  Krypton's mail server will
   shut down a few weeks later.

   This message is not signed: I don't have easy access to my gpg
   key.  If you send me encrypted mail, I will not be able to read it
   for the next two weeks.  If you wish to verify my authorship of
   this email, feel free to query, I just won't be able to respond
   with gpg signed mail until mid-July.
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug