Re: [gentoo-user] USB drive dead? (Commands to check?)
On Tuesday 22 September 2009, Mark Knecht wrote: What's with Linux support of external drives? Is it just not reliable enough to depend on? This was not a drive failure but just a bunch of sense code message problems and everything quit. I probably could have spent time removing drivers, etc, and then restarting it but I just rebooted and everything came back. I used to use this drive for weeks at a time on one of my Windows boxes. No problems at that time so I have no strong reason to suspect the drive when this is the second drive issue in a few days wit this system. I wonder how I determine if it's a drive problem or a kernel/driver problem? I wonder if you have a memory problem with that box? I don't know what errors you've been getting in the logs, but it is a thought when the common denominator is the box. Have you tried running memtest86+ overnight to see what gives? Another reason might be the physical location. If the drives in question are submitted to physical vibration (e.g. next to a door; staircase, etc) then the failures could be due to mechanical reasons. HTH. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] USB drive dead? (Commands to check?)
On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I seem to have lost an external USB drive I've been using on my MythTV backend server for video storage. What commands can I try to get it to wake up or at least show me what's working and what isn't? The drive shows under fdisk /dev/sda. I can see the large partition, and it seems to be the right size, according to fdisk anyway, but I cannot mount it using mount, and so far I cannot get e2fsck to do anything. I had similar errors with an external USB drive recently and it turned out to be related to the USB port on the computer. (I suspect the USB controller was overloaded). I plugged it into a port on a different controller and it started working normally again. So some easy things I would suggest trying before messing with data: A) diferent USB port on the same computer B) plug it into a different computer entirely C) try a different USB cable By definition this will be true when I move it from the PPC-based Myth backend to the AMD64-based MythTV frontend here in the office. If it 'magically' starts working then that sort of cause may well be the reason. I'll report back on this but won't likely touch it before the weekend. So last night my replacement drive - 1394-bsed, not USB - went off-line during recording time so sll the late evening recordings were hosed. What's with Linux support of external drives? Is it just not reliable enough to depend on? This was not a drive failure but just a bunch of sense code message problems and everything quit. I probably could have spent time removing drivers, etc, and then restarting it but I just rebooted and everything came back. I used to use this drive for weeks at a time on one of my Windows boxes. No problems at that time so I have no strong reason to suspect the drive when this is the second drive issue in a few days wit this system. I wonder how I determine if it's a drive problem or a kernel/driver problem? - Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] USB drive dead? (Commands to check?)
On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I seem to have lost an external USB drive I've been using on my MythTV backend server for video storage. What commands can I try to get it to wake up or at least show me what's working and what isn't? The drive shows under fdisk /dev/sda. I can see the large partition, and it seems to be the right size, according to fdisk anyway, but I cannot mount it using mount, and so far I cannot get e2fsck to do anything. I had similar errors with an external USB drive recently and it turned out to be related to the USB port on the computer. (I suspect the USB controller was overloaded). I plugged it into a port on a different controller and it started working normally again. So some easy things I would suggest trying before messing with data: A) diferent USB port on the same computer B) plug it into a different computer entirely C) try a different USB cable
Re: [gentoo-user] USB drive dead? (Commands to check?)
On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I seem to have lost an external USB drive I've been using on my MythTV backend server for video storage. What commands can I try to get it to wake up or at least show me what's working and what isn't? The drive shows under fdisk /dev/sda. I can see the large partition, and it seems to be the right size, according to fdisk anyway, but I cannot mount it using mount, and so far I cannot get e2fsck to do anything. I had similar errors with an external USB drive recently and it turned out to be related to the USB port on the computer. (I suspect the USB controller was overloaded). I plugged it into a port on a different controller and it started working normally again. So some easy things I would suggest trying before messing with data: A) diferent USB port on the same computer B) plug it into a different computer entirely C) try a different USB cable By definition this will be true when I move it from the PPC-based Myth backend to the AMD64-based MythTV frontend here in the office. If it 'magically' starts working then that sort of cause may well be the reason. I'll report back on this but won't likely touch it before the weekend. Thanks! Cheers, Mark
[gentoo-user] USB drive dead? (Commands to check?)
Hi, I seem to have lost an external USB drive I've been using on my MythTV backend server for video storage. What commands can I try to get it to wake up or at least show me what's working and what isn't? The drive shows under fdisk /dev/sda. I can see the large partition, and it seems to be the right size, according to fdisk anyway, but I cannot mount it using mount, and so far I cannot get e2fsck to do anything. Both of these fail: mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1 /video mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /video I have power cycled the drive and I've rebooted the MacMini. Nothing changed. Thanks in advance, Mark MacMini ~ # fdisk /dev/sda The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 19929. 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): p Disk /dev/sda: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0xa9b5c6b5 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 19929 160079661 83 Linux Command (m for help): MacMini ~ # df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/hda4 75890040 37169416 34865560 52% / udev 10240 156 10084 2% /dev shm 257396 0257396 0% /dev/shm MacMini ~ # fsck -t ext3 /dev/sda fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008) e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008) fsck.ext3: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks... fsck.ext3: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 device MacMini ~ # e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/sda e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008) e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 device MacMini ~ # fsck -t ext3 /dev/sda1 fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008) e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008) fsck.ext3: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying to open /dev/sda1 Could this be a zero-length partition? MacMini ~ # e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/sda1 e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008) e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1 The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 device MacMini ~ # e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/sda e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008) e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 device MacMini ~ #
