On Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:06:46 -0500 and...@msu.edu wrote:
> Quoting "J.C. Roberts" <list-...@designtools.org>:
>
> > And I thought I was expected to be inconsistent. ;)
> >
> > Anyhow, I was upgrading from the Feb 2, to the most recent
> > snapshot, and fsck is coming up with a problem on one of my
> > partitions. I can probably get it working ("fix" is such a strong
> > word) with `fsck -fy` but my real concern is if the drive is
> > failing?
> >
> > atactl tells me everything is just fine?
> >
> > I have a nearly identical system, with the same type of disk, which
> > reports similar atactl attributes... but then again, I don't really
> > trust SATA/PATA drives very much or their supposedly "smart"
> > monitoring.
> >
> > The data on the system is not only backed up, but it's also easily
> > replaced since the machine is only used for src and ports builds. I
> > think I might lose a total of a few newly downloaded distfiles
> > since the last backup.
> >
> > What I really want to do here is understand *why* some portion of
> > the disk has become unreadable?
>
> I've seen the smart system report errors and have had them become
> true a few times, but far more often I've seen the damn things report
> "No proble, Boss" and then died a little later...
>
> You could have any number of things going on giving you those read
> errors. With the right test jig from the manufacturer you'd likely
> know. My guess would be an op amp for one of the heads isn't quite
> working right. The other possibility is that part of the disk wasn't
> coated right and you have a weak spot, magnetically speaking.
>
> But you'll never really know. At least you now have a new target, for
> practice with. Sabot rounds are great for little disks...
>
Where's Nick and his nail gun when we need him?
I got to work with some people from the "disk industry" and know how
secretive they must be about how stuff actually works due to NDA's. I'd
have better odds as a snowball in hell than getting the needed test
equipment and docs from the vendor.
--
