OT Both my HDD's going bad at same time.

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 20 February 2009, Steven Vollom wrote:
>> Can you open the box and install another drive with any confidence?  I
>> have 2 or 3 drives that are long in the tooth, in the 160 to 200GB size
>> range. They still worked when I pulled them for bigger drives.  Contact me
>> off list.
>
>If by that you mean do I have the ability to install a hard drive, Yes.  But
> I purchased a Maxtor OneTouch III  1TB exterior drive.  It did not work out
> of the box and Maxtor would not help, because I did not have their approved
> systems, XP, Vista, or Mac.  The drive had the 800, 400, USB2 connectors. 
> It just would not work.  After about 6 months of trying to get help, I just
> got rid of it.  It was pretty but useless and they would not help me
> because I use Linux Kubuntu, I think Feisty at the time.

That is indeed sad.  Were you on this list then and did you ask for help?  I do not recall.  But it should have worked 
something like this:

1. plug drive into a usb port, computer up and running some flavor of linux
2. Run 'dmesg', or in your case 'sudo dmesg' and look at the last few lines.
Example:
[138177.572022] usb 1-9: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 11
[138177.707938] usb 1-9: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[138177.708482] usb 1-9: New USB device found, idVendor=0d49, idProduct=7250
[138177.708485] usb 1-9: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[138177.708487] usb 1-9: Product: Maxtor OneTouch III
[138177.708489] usb 1-9: Manufacturer: Maxtor
[138177.708490] usb 1-9: SerialNumber: RA01ZFQC
[138178.271619] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[138178.272642] scsi8 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[138178.273213] usb-storage: device found at 11
[138178.273215] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[138178.273227] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[138178.273231] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[138184.039471] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Maxtor   OneTouch III     0362 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[138184.071080] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] 78140160 512-byte hardware sectors: (40.0 GB/37.2 GiB)
[138184.073705] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[138184.073708] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 17 00 00 00
[138184.073710] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[138184.074580] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] 78140160 512-byte hardware sectors: (40.0 GB/37.2 GiB)
[138184.076704] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[138184.076707] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 17 00 00 00
[138184.076708] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[138184.076711]  sde: sde1
[138184.098464] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk
[138184.098533] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[138184.098690] usb-storage: device scan complete

Ok, that is clear enough, its a 40GB drive, and I can then do 'fdisk /dev/sde'
and get something like this:
[root at coyote ~]# fdisk /dev/sde

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 4864.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help):   

Hit an m on the keyboard and get the help, which tells you that a 'p' will 
print the partition table if there is one.  And it might look like this:
       Disk /dev/sde: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa3a253be

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sde1   *           1        4864    39070048+  83  Linux

So this drive has only 1, nearly 40GB partition, and its type is a type 83
filesystem, aka linux ext2 or ext3.

There are other commands, see the 'm' output again, that will allow
you to delete partitions (do that in reverse order) or resize them, virtually
anything you want to do in terms of partitioning that drive can be done.

But at this point I'd 'q'enter the fdisk session and install 'gparted', which
has more intelligent gui's to work with, and is able to move partitions 
around or resize them within reason, but be aware that a move is a very 
lengthy operation, the last time I did it a few weeks ago, moving an almost 
400GB partition just to make room for a bigger /boot partition actually took 
nearly 6 hours, but there was NO data loss.  If the data isn't precious, then
the fdisk method, followed by a mke2fs -j /dev/sd[letter of drive][number of 
partition] would have been many hours faster.

Now, if you have mastered that, you can congratulate yourself as having 
stepped up the linux guru ladder at least one rung.  And the above is exactly 
what I would have done with that 1TB drive without a seconds hesitation
because regardless of what may have been installed on it in the way of windows
virii, it was windows and to be overwritten at the earliest moment.

>I really believe I am excellent at installation, because I follow
> instructions and am meticulously careful when I work.  I have installed
> many cards and drives and CD and DVDroms and rw's.  I have changed memory,
> replaced a motherboard, installed power supplies.  I am not a technician,
> but only the installation of the Maxtor OneTouch and my current problem
> with an ASUS motherboard have I ever had a problem.  I have fixed and
> installed many such items for people in the church too.  I have never had a
> problem where I felt I had any responsibility.  I believe both items that
> were a problem had defects.

I'd like to see that drive, but since its gone... :(

>I just can't afford to make any more mistakes.  If my HDD's are both going
> bad, I will have to spend much needed money, because my computer is a high
> priority in my life.  Without it I would go nuts.  I know I am a big burden
> to you guys, but I just can't help it.  I would give anything to be less of
> a problem.
>
>I can not afford another Maxtor mistake.  What I purchase has to work. 
> Writing off that big a loss at this time is unthinkable, nonetheless, I
> still need to replace what I have.  My larger drive had a long list of Old
> age and early failure warnings, but also tested as PASSED for now.  The
> smaller drive had many more old age and early failure warnings, about 3
> pages.  There is a hum that could be a fan motor going bad, but I think it
> is a hard drive, about to die.  It seems to speed up and slow down rather
> than maintain a consistent hum sound. I don't have space for backup, so if
> I lose a drive, I lose the data. I can live with that, but would prefer not
> to.
>
>Where are you?  I am in Dayton, Ohio.  I will pay you what you think they
> are worth and also shipping.  I only need to survive a little longer until
> my new computer is working.  I don't understand ASUS.  They have made
> probably 20 or 30 time and service promises over the past 3 months and have
> never kept even one.  When I RMA'd the motherboard, they said it would be
> returned in 9 or less days.  I confirmed their receipt of the board and
> have been waiting 11 days if you count from when they received it and 15
> days from the day I shipped it.  I am about to believe this is another
> Maxtor situation, and am looking for another board that will suite my
> needs.  I don't seem to be very lucky lately, other than the List.  It is
> the best thing that has happened to me in years.  Whatever you suggest I
> will do; I trust you implicitly.

I'm over in North central WV, too far for an afternoon drive.  When I was 
working, I used to drive over behind the airport in Dayton, to Venture MFG,
who made loooong (5 feet of travel) satellite jack/motor assemblies for 
handling the bigger C band satellite dishes common at tv stations.  I'm the
almost retired C.E. at WDTV-5.  Almost retired cuz when you know where all the
bodies are, they never let you retire, they just have the party, give you 
the $5k Rolex and put you on retainer so when TSHTF, they can ring you up & 
make you earn that retainer.  Or ship me off someplace that needs help for
a nice weekly and all expenses.

Unforch, while the money is nice, it sure plays hell with my tax bracket. :)

Anyway, contact me off list.

>Steven



-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Those who don't understand Linux are doomed to reinvent it, poorly.
	-- unidentified source