Re: Re: [OT] Linux and HDD problems

[Bruno Prior <bruno@xxxxxxx>]

Paul,

I had problems with five WD drives I had in a software RAID
configuration. They put themselves to sleep in such a way that the
software RAID drivers interpret it as a disk failure. Don't know if this
is the same problem you are having, but my problems completely
disappeared when I exchanged the WD drives for Maxtors. Try the
following link for more info (of course this is going to wrap badly):

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=73mC5hSg&p_lva=&p_faqid=913&p_created=1047068027

But be warned, the utility provided didn't solve the problem for me.

If it's not that, another classic culprit could be the cable. Make sure
it's not too long, not badly kinked, and 80-strand if you are using
higher ATA levels.

Or another thing to try is some combination of the following boot
options (pass them at the bootprompt or add them to lilo.conf): acpi=off
noapic pci=noacpi (especially the first two).

I've been running Mandrake 9.1 with that kernel version on my server,
and since replacing the WD disks with the Maxtors, it hasn't crashed
once. So I don't think it's something intrinsic to Mandrake 9.1 or that
kernel version. But I'm not using SMP, which does make things rather
more complicated, and maybe less stable.

Cheers,

Bruno


Paul Gale wrote:
> It's a Western Digital drive - don't know the model number off hand
though.
>
> Paul.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: alcinababe [mailto:alcinababe@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 01 September 2003 20:17
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: [ukha_d] Re: [OT] Linux and HDD problems
>
>
>
> --- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "Paul Gale" <groups@s...>
wrote:
>
>>I have a dual Pentium II Xeon 400 machine running Zone Minder
>
> (latest build). I've got Mandrake Linux 9.1 (Linux version
> 2.4.21-0.13mdksmp) running. After a couple of days, the machine
> crashes and I get the following errors:
>
>>EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,1)) in ext3_get_inode_write : IO
failure
>>
>>EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,1)) : ext3_get_inode_loc : unable to
>
> read inode block - inode = 607535, block 1212496
>
>>I thought it was a HDD failure but I scanned the drive using a WD
>
> utility that scans all blocks and it came up clean. Is it likely to be
> the drive or OS / software? Is there a better low level disk checker
> out there that can aggressively test the disk?
>
> Can't help with sofware, but as soon as someone mentions "hard
drive"
> and "I/O error" I immediately suspect a Fujitsu at play! 
What make
> and model is the hard drive itself?  If it's a Fujitsu drive with the
> model number beginning MPG (and occasionally MPF) then it's probably
> got one of the many faulty Fujitsu drive controllers.  The usual
> symptom is innumerable I/O errors (If you were running Windows you'd
> get "Can't write to drive C") then suddenly....da nada...no
drive
> whatsoever.  Over the last year I've had to replace over 300 of the
> little blighters, and there are still loads around...failing.  If it
> *is* a Fujitsu MPG/F drive backup now and change the drive asap.
>
> Alcina
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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