[vox-tech] In Denial About These Hard Drive Problems

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Peter Jay Salzman (p@dirac.org):

>   ide0: BM-DMA at 0xc000-0xc007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
>   hda: IC35L040AVER07-0, ATA DISK drive
>   hda: 80418240 sectors (41174 MB) w/1916KiB Cache, CHS=5005/255/63, UDMA(33)
>   Partition check:
>   hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 >
>   hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
>   hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=33873786,
>     sector=2097216
>   end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 2097216
>   EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,3)): ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read inode
>     block - inode=128385, block=262152
>   EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,3)) in ext3_reserve_inode_write: IO failure
>   EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,3)) in ext3_new_inode: IO failure
>   hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
>   hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=33873786,
>     sector=2097216
>   end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 2097216
>   EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,3)): ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read inode
>     block - inode=128386, block=262152
>   EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,3)) in ext3_reserve_inode_write: IO failure
>   EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,3)) in ext3_new_inode: IO failure

Richard, I second Mike Simons's suggestion that you drop everything and
secure as good a backup as possible of all files on that hard drive you
care about.  

There are underlying hardware errors occurring somewhere on your IDE
chain, manifesting themselves as drive seek errors on your hard drive.
While one cannot rule out from the above possibilities such as (1) 
IDE cable being nicked or pinched, (2) failing IDE circuitry, or (3)
weak system power supply, the odds are that you're seeing progressive 
failure of your hard drive at either the physical or logical level.

The term "physical" in this context should be easy to understand:  
Hard drive surfaces fail, bearings get dodgy, and drive electronics
goes haywire over time.  Usually, it's mechanical failure rather than
the electronics.  And that's what drive warranties are for.

"Logical" refers to the drive's formatting.  There's an outside chance
that you're seeing progressive failure of the drive's timing-track
layout.  The way you determine whether this is the case is to re-do the
drive's low-level format, then re-do the partition table, then re-make
the filesystems, and see if it's suddenly reliable again.  With SCSI
drives, you re-do the low-level format using the host adapter's utility
for that purpose.  Since you have an ATA ("IDE") drive, you'll have to
look on the drive manufacturer's Web or ftp site for a "pseudo-low-level
formatting" utility for that make and model.  If no such exists, then
you're out of luck, and will have to invoke the drive warranty to get 
a replacement.

-- 
Cheers,   The difference between common sense and paranoia is that common sense
Rick Moen     is thinking everyone is out to get you.  That's normal; they are.
rick@linuxmafia.com      Paranoia is thinking they're conspiring.  -- J. Kegler