On Thu, May 3, 2007 11:15 am, Carl Lowenstein wrote: > On 5/3/07, Lan Barnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> On Thu, May 3, 2007 8:57 am, Joshua Penix wrote: >> > On May 2, 2007, at 3:40 PM, Lan Barnes wrote: >> > >> >> Went home for errands and booted it up. It w o r k s, sort of, but >> >> it's >> >> real slow to boot and stuff. The logs show a nest of hda errors >> >> yesterday >> >> and some DMA errors. >> >> >> >> Then when I tried to exit X it went south with a couple of hda >> >> resers/OK >> >> and dma messages. Had to power down. >> > >> > Is your hard drive dying? If so, I'm pretty sure I have a spare 2.5" >> > laptop hard drive that I saved from a previous Thinkpad upgrade. If >> > memory serves, it's only 10-20GB, but it might do the trick. If you >> > think that'd help let me know - I'll have to double check its >> > existence when I get to my office, but otherwise it's yours if you >> want. >> > >> >> Thanks. >> >> If it's dying, I can't prove it with smartd, hence my desire to take it >> to >> the installfest Saturday where adults can pore over it. I also wondered >> if >> the DMA controller got fried when the thing overheated. I'm as educated >> about hardware as the next Fiji Island native, but it seems to me that >> HD >> problems could arise if DMA in unreliable. So maybe the drive is the >> good >> part and the MB has fried components? >> >> Anyway, 20 G would be awful tight. This drive is/was a 40 G and while >> enough for me, half as much might not be. Still, a swap of drives might >> be >> a good test of the DMA hypothesis. Maybe I should try to get ahold of it >> before Saturday. >> >> Carl, that's your installfest. What do you think? >> > > Do you have (or does someone have) an external USB adapter to take the > removed drive so that salvageable stuff can be copied back to the > transplant? Or does everything of value now exist on some other > system? >
1. All data of any value except possibly the browser bookmarks has been backed up to other machines long ago. I will make a copy of them tonight (although my machine at work has a pretty good copy already). 2. The machine works well enough and long enough to transfer anything I want to for convenience 3. The real issue is can we save the hardware. A laptop is a terrific convenience for me, almost a necessity. I probably need a new one fairly soon because this one is long in the tooth, but nursing even three more months out of it would be a blessing. So if I can shift your attention to the installfest, diagnosis, personnel, equipment: what besides me and the laptop do you think we need? > Actually, looking around, I have an external USB case to take a 2.5" disk > drive. > > After that, it's just a simple matter of being organized. :-) > That is asking too much of me. Need a winkey? ;-) -- Lan Barnes SCM Analyst Linux Guy Tcl/Tk Enthusiast Biodiesel Brewer -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-steer
