[ubuntu-za] Blown Disk

Mon Feb 16 07:20:24 UTC 2015

Thanks all - I was hoping that I would be able to reformat and re-install
on the same drive, but your comments (and the link) suggest that is
unlikely. The Home partition on the rest of the drive seems OK though -
perhaps I will be able to continue using it.

I will have a shot at re-installing on that partition. Otherwise off to buy
a disk.

I am usually pretty good with backups - I do them manually so that I know
they are good. Normally i do them on Wednesday and Sunday - this Wednesday
we were partying and of course it failed on Friday as I went away for the
weekend. Murphy is a nasty Irishman - please repeal Murphy's Law.
Fortunately I can still access the disk and manually back up the files that
I know I changed. (My scripts won't work of course).

The history of this failure is perhaps informative. We had regular load
shedding all week and, on top of that, a power loss during a storm. Every
time I booted after that I got the message that there was an internal
error. On Friday I shut down my machines as we were going away but this
machine just would not shut down - it just ignored me when I told it to
shut down. So eventually I just powered it off. Perhaps I caught it as it
was trying to write to disk? Whatever - I now have a bad sector.

I do have a RCT UPS but it does not carry enough charge to allow me more
than about half a minute to shut down. Any suggestions for a reliable UPS?

Bill

On 16 February 2015 at 08:22, Bruce Pieterse <dev at otq.za.net> wrote:

>
> On 16/02/2015 07:47, Bill Cairns wrote:
>
>          Hi Bruce,
>
>  Lots of stuff! I am giving it all - it means nothing much to me (except
> the I/O error on device!) but perhaps someone can decipher it and give me a
> suggestion. At least I have a sector number - does that help at all?
>
> (Sorry - I have to retype this as my machine is now off-line and I am
> on-line with my ancient XP notebook instead).
>
>  ata1.00 status; { DRDY ERR }
>  ata1.00; error: { UNC }
>  ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
>  Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
>  sd 0:0:0:0: [sda]
>  sense Key : Medium Error [current] [descriptor]
>  Descriptor sense data with sense descriptors (in hex):
>      72 03 11 01 00 00 00 0c 00 0a 80 00 00 00 00 00
>     00 00 08 15
>  sd 0:0:0:0: [sda]
>  Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error - auto reallocate failed
>  sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] CDB:
>  Read
> (10): 28 00 00 00 08 10 00 00 08 00
>  end request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 2069
>  Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 2
> ata1: EH complete
>
> This looks like hardware failure[1]. It looks like you will need to
> replace the disk. Luckily, you have backups!
>
>
>  Thanks,
>    Bill
>
>
> On 15 February 2015 at 23:30, Bruce Pieterse <dev at otq.za.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 15/02/2015 21:18, Bill Cairns wrote:
>>
>>  Thanks Wayne - I am afraid that nothing seems to work. fsck tries to
>> access the disk (sda1) but just comes back with an error that says that the
>> disk is unreadable. I have tried to follow the instructions from the link
>> you sent me - but I just don't get far enough.  I also tried the check
>> option under gparted and got exactly the same result. I think that I am
>> going to have to try and reformat the partition. At least I have managed to
>> backup all my files including the ones from last week.
>>
>>  I will sleep on it and try again tomorrow. (One of the advantages of
>> being retired ...)
>>
>>  Bill
>>
>> On 15 February 2015 at 17:18, Wayne Abroue <plettpc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Firstly , Ypou need to boot with externalmedia, and unmount the drive.
>>>
>>>  Then go with /dev/sda  first, then follow up with /dev/sda1 /2 etc.
>>>
>>>  check out
>>> https://linuxexpresso.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/repair-a-broken-ext4-superblock-in-ubuntu/
>>>
>>>  Wayne A
>>>
>>> On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>   Hi Wayne,
>>>>
>>>>  sudo fsck /dev/sda1
>>>>
>>>>  gives:
>>>>  fsck from util-linux 2.20.1
>>>>  e2fsck 1.42.9 (4-Feb-2014)
>>>>  fsck.ext4: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short
>>>> read while trying to open /dev/sda1
>>>>  Could this be a zero-length partition?
>>>>
>>>>  (I hope not!)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 15 February 2015 at 16:39, Wayne Abroue <plettpc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi
>>>>>
>>>>> Doesnt sound like your disk is gone or needing a reinstall, just a bit
>>>>> of reshuffling  and linux magic needed. HAve you tried
>>>>>
>>>>>  sudo fsck /dev/***   the partition or drive.?
>>>>>
>>>>>  Wayne A
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 4:18 PM, Bill Cairns <cairnsww at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>     Hi All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  It seems that the sudden power failures caused by load shedding has
>>>>>> somehow caused some disk damage. When I tried to boot this morning, I got a
>>>>>> grub message that it was trying to read / write beyond hda limits. I booted
>>>>>> from the original  DVD, but when I try to look at the root drive where the
>>>>>> OS is located I get "Unable to access 20 GB volume" and lots of error
>>>>>> messages including "mount:wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on
>>>>>> /dev/sda1.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  So it does not look good.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Fortunately all my files are on another Home drive and I can access
>>>>>> them - I also have full backup (although Murphy told me not to backup last
>>>>>> week so I am missing some stuff ...)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  My first thought is to simply re-instal on the root drive while
>>>>>> keeping my Home directory alone. But I thought that before I did that I
>>>>>> would ask if there is perhaps something else I can try - and also ask
>>>>>> whether my diagnosis is correct?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  (I am not sure that I have used the right terminology here - I hope
>>>>>> that I have been clear enough that you can still understand).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Bill
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  --
>>>>>> ubuntu-za mailing list
>>>>>> ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-za
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
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>>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
>>   Hi Bill,
>>
>> Anything useful in dmesg (dmesg or dmesg | tail)?
>>
>> --
>> All the best,
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>> FSF Member 10674 / The FSF is a charity with a worldwide mission to advance software freedom / Join the Free Software Foundation: http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=10674
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>  [1]
> http://askubuntu.com/questions/9606/how-to-interpret-these-errors-from-syslog
>
> --
> All the best,
>
> Bruce
>
> FSF Member 10674 / The FSF is a charity with a worldwide mission to advance software freedom / Join the Free Software Foundation: http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=10674
>
>
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