On 2 June 2012 08:55, Kevin Harvey <[email protected]> wrote: > On 01/06/12 23:10, Steve Holdoway wrote: > >> On 01/06/12 17:26, Timothy Musson wrote: >> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> I'm maintaining a computer running Ubuntu 10.04LTS for my grandfather. >>> The computer's just over a year old, and hasn't had any trouble until >>> a couple of days ago when my grandfather told me it wouldn't boot. >>> >>> So, checking it out... >>> >>> The first time I tried to start it up, it seemed to hang just after >>> loading grub (...black screen apart from a flashing cursor at top >>> left). The hard drive light was not active at all. Minutes passed. >>> Nothing happened. >>> >>> The second time, Ubuntu started up - but slowly (say, five minutes >>> from power-on to gdm). Once running all seemed fine - except for the >>> following messages in /var/log/messages: >>> >>> May 30 23:51:09 hobart kernel: [ 340.299182] sr 1:0:0:0: CDB: Test >>> Unit Ready: 00 00 00 00 00 00 >>> May 30 23:51:09 hobart kernel: [ 340.309401] ata2: soft resetting link >>> May 30 23:51:10 hobart kernel: [ 340.488255] ata2.00: configured for >>> UDMA/66 >>> May 30 23:51:10 hobart kernel: [ 340.756317] ata2.00: TEST_UNIT_READY >>> failed (err_mask=0x2) >>> May 30 23:51:15 hobart kernel: [ 345.464026] ata2: soft resetting link >>> May 30 23:51:15 hobart kernel: [ 345.644250] ata2.00: configured for >>> UDMA/66 >>> May 30 23:51:17 hobart kernel: [ 348.000352] ata2.00: TEST_UNIT_READY >>> failed (err_mask=0x2) >>> May 30 23:51:17 hobart kernel: [ 348.000359] ata2.00: limiting speed >>> to UDMA/66:PIO3 >>> May 30 23:51:20 hobart kernel: [ 350.620020] ata2: soft resetting link >>> May 30 23:51:25 hobart kernel: [ 355.776150] ata2.00: qc timeout (cmd >>> 0xa1) >>> May 30 23:51:25 hobart kernel: [ 355.776159] ata2.00: failed to >>> IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x4) >>> May 30 23:51:25 hobart kernel: [ 355.779671] ata2.00: disabled >>> May 30 23:51:30 hobart kernel: [ 360.816022] ata2: link is slow to >>> respond, please be patient (ready=0) >>> May 30 23:51:35 hobart kernel: [ 365.800022] ata2: device not ready >>> (errno=-16), forcing hardreset >>> May 30 23:51:35 hobart kernel: [ 365.800032] ata2: soft resetting link >>> May 30 23:51:35 hobart kernel: [ 365.956188] ata2: EH complete >>> >>> That sequence of messages repeated over and over. >>> >>> The third time I rebooted, all was fine, the OS loaded as quickly as >>> ever, and there was nothing weird being written to /var/log/messages. >>> >>> What I've tried: >>> >>> Via Ubuntu's "Disk Utility", I've tried the "SMART" self tests on the >>> dodgy drive. It found nothing wrong and calls the drive "healthy". >>> >>> I've run memtest86+ for 24 hours, and the computer's memory (2Gb) seems >>> fine. >>> >>> The drive seems to be behaving itself now, but I'm not sure I trust it. >>> >>> What you you think? Is this what happens when a hard drive begins to >>> fail? >>> >>> >>> (We do have daily backups on an external drive, so I'm not tooo >>> worried about disaster at this point.) >>> >>> > Download Clonezilla and clone the drive before it fails completely. >
or for simplicity in the GNU/Linux environment use the linux command dd which is part of the basic Linux o/s. dd if=/dev/sdx of=stuffed-drive.img x stands for the unmounted drive which is failing. ( use a rescue cd if, horrors of horrors, it has your running o/s on it. ) if you get errors which cause dd to fail then use dd_rescue instead, which you might have to load from your distro CD/DVD, use a rescue cd, or download from your distribution archives. http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/ http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage This bootable cd is very useful. Every geek should have the latest one on hand. -- Sincerely, Christopher Sawtell
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