>b. Disk errors
>
>Of the 20 external disks, only 8 have NOT reported something along the
>lines of:
>
> Dec 11 02:17:08 vice3 vmunix: sd4c: Error for command 'write'
> Dec 11 02:17:08 vice3 vmunix: sd4c: Error Level: Fatal
> Dec 11 02:17:08 vice3 vmunix: sd4c: Block 1735392, Absolute Block: 1735392
> Dec 11 02:17:08 vice3 vmunix: sd4c: Sense Key: Media Error
> Dec 11 02:17:08 vice3 vmunix: sd4c: Vendor 'SEAGATE' error code: 0x12
>
>The disks are Seagate ST32550WC from Sun, labeled and formatted as
>their standard 2.1GB drive in the UniPack enclosure.
>
These errors are the type of errors we see when we have badspots. You should
do an analyze from the format command and try to uncover and remap any other
bad spots on the media. Using a nondestructive (read) analyze may fix your
problems, but if it doesn't, you need to vacate your disk and do a destructive
(write) analyze. The destructive analyze is preferred since bad spots may
only show up on writes due to voltage differences on the heads (at least so I
hear).
Also, if you know for example, that your disk is free of bad spots and
something like this crops up, you can assume its a new badspot. In these
isolated incidents, you can use the format command to remap the isolated
badspot. Its recommended you do an fsck after the procedure, but its fairly
painless.
I've heard these drives (as most modern SCSI drives) have onboard intelligence
to remap bad spots on the fly, but the format command shipped by most vendors
isn't smart enough to enable this option.
Mark Giuffrida
Univ of Michigan, CAEN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
