hard disk failure

[Technomage Hawke]

hmmm. no SMART data? I need to read the man page to see how that is done. still, if it got that much info, the drive might be good. one question: did toy have an unusual event prior to the drive having an apparent malfunction? such events may include (but are not limited to) a power bump, interrupted installation of software (either by hardware error or software), an overheat issue, etc.

I have had 3 machines die around here after a power bump caused by a pole transformer blowing a fuse. all the machines developed inconsistent errors (HDD failing to accept writes, post failing, PSU partial failure, etc). I had to replace 2 PSU units, one HDD and one motherboard (room mates vista machine developed a catastrophic failure). 

-eric

On Feb 18, 2012, at 9:46 AM, Michael Havens wrote:

> Thanks for letting me know, Eric!
> It seems to me everything is good. (But what do I know!) Here is the results:
> 
> hdparm /dev/sda1 
>   
>   multcount    = 16 (on) 
>   IO_support  =   1 (32-bit)
>   readonly      =   0 (off)
>   reahead       = 256 (on)
>   geometry     = 4863/255/63, sectors =  55285760, start = 2048
> 
> hdparm /dev/sda2 
>   
>   multcount    = 16 (on)
>   IO_support  =   1 (32-bit)
>   readonly      =   0 (off)
>   reahead       = 256 (on)
>   geometry     = 4863/255/63, sectors =  2, start = 75769854
> 
> hdparm /dev/sda3
>   
>   multcount   = 16 (on)
>   IO_support =   1 (32-bit)
>   readonly     =   0 (off)
>   reahead      = 256 (on)
>   geometry    = 4863/255/63, sectors =  20480000, start = 55287808
> 
> hdparm /dev/sda 
>   
>   multcount   = 16 (on)
>   IO_support =   1 (32-bit)
>   readonly     =   0 (off)
>   reahead     = 256 (on)
>   geometry   = 4863/255/63, sectors =  78125000, start = 0
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 8:07 AM, Technomage Hawke <technomage.hawke at gmail.com> wrote:
> now I remember what the other tool was: hdparm. that tool will tell you what the SMART status is on the HDD.
> 
> -eric
> 
> On Feb 18, 2012, at 2:42 AM, Stu wrote:
> 
> > Just a suggestion, have you thought about giving UBCD a try? There's a bunch of software tools on it, most of which are way beyond me, but I have managed to salvage a couple of hard drives with it in the past.
> >
> > http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
> >
> >
> > On 02/17/2012 04:27 PM, Technomage Hawke wrote:
> >> you can load a live DVD into the system and then try one of the many HDD test tools (badblocks with no options is a safe bet and will tell you almost immediately if there are any problems). I know there is another command line tool that can test drive throughput and read the SMART tables on the controller. I can't remember its name off hand, but it is a good one to test the drive electronics.
> >>
> >> -eric
> >>
> >> On Feb 17, 2012, at 10:05 AM, Michael Havens wrote:
> >>
> >>> Yep.... I think I had a hard disk failure. I restarted my computer and was presented with:
> >>>
> >>>      error: unknown filesystem.
> >>>      grub rescue>
> >>>
> >>> I then typed 'ls' and the response was
> >>>
> >>>      (hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos1) (fd0)
> >>>
> >>> which is two partitions, the swap drive, and the floppy disk
> >>> how do I verify my suspicion of drive failure?
> >>> funny how all this happened just as I was attempting to back it up.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
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> -- 
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