Re: fsck can't determine fstype

[Waitman Gobble]

On Jan 16, 2013 10:24 AM, "Robert Huff"  wrote:
>
>
>Situation:
>I have a hard drive which may or may not have died already,
> from which I would _very_ much like to recover maybe 1 gbyte of data.
>After extracting it from the old machine, it's now hooked up to
> a system running:
>
> FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT #0: Sun Dec 30 12:52:09 EST 2012 amd64
>
>   "gpart show" identifies it as "ad1" with partition 2 as type
> "freebsd-ufs" and label "g_user".
>   However:
>
> >> fsck /dev/ad1p2
> fsck: could not determine filesystem type
>
>   Adding " -t ufs " produces:
>
> huff@>> fsck -t ufs /ad1p2
> ** /dev/ad1p2
> ** Last Mounted on /usr
> ** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
> -2103374334359810 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103382924294404 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103391514228998 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103400104163592 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103408694098186 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103417284032780 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103425873967374 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103434463901968 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103443053836562 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103451643771156 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> -2103460233705750 BAD I=342
> UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY
>
> EXCESSIVE BAD BLKS I=342
> CONTINUE? [yn] ^C
> * FILE SYSTEM STILL DIRTY *
>
>
>   While I'm not an fs expert, this feels wrong.
>   Is there some clue I'm missing?
>
>   Respectfully,
>
>
> Robert Huff
>
> 

hi,

you might try to force a read only mount, if the drive is clicking its
probably losing "tracking", I have had luck in the past putting it in a
ziplock and in the freezer for a good while. hope that helps.

Waitman Gobble
San Jose California


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Re: fsck not working on messed-up file system

[Thomas Mueller]

> * PLEASE RERUN FSCK *

> > Script done on Wed Sep 19 04:17:27 2012


> > Would this indicate a software bug, or is my Western Digital Caviar Green
> > 3 TB hard drive failing?

> Either something was referencing sectors off the end of the disc,
> or the drive is failing. I'd be inclined to copy the data off somewhere
> safe and subject the disc to extensive tests with smartctl from
> smartmontools, then if it passes recreate the fileystem(s) and restore the
> data.

> Steve O'Hara-Smith 

I went looking to see if there was something more powerful than fsck in the 
ports tree, category sysutils, but didn't find anything.

I wonder why NetBSD fsck was able to revive the partition when FreeBSD fsck got 
stuck in a loop, though I easily got out of said loop by not re-rerunning fsck.
Maybe NetBSD fsck was better than FreeBSD fsck for repairing NetBSD mischief?

It might be good to build, from ports, not only smartmontools but also 
subversion, on my backup 8 GB FreeBSD USB stick.

I might also want to rerun "cvs up -dP" on the NetBSD pkgsrc and system-source 
directories before using again, hoping to retrieve anything that might have 
been lost. 

> > Script started on Wed Sep 19 04:15:02 2012
> > fsck_ffs /dev/ada0p9

> just to make sure: the partition was not mounted when you started fsck?

> > Now I wonder if the file system is really fixed, with possibly some
> > files in /pkgsrc subdirectories lost, or if the hard drive is
> > starting to fail.

> You see it soon. I would not bother about a single problem like this. I
> have had it over and over again at a location with bad power supply
> with a normal PC without UPS.

> The hard disk is - one year later - still working in a different
> location without any new problems.

> Erich

I remembered not to run fsck on a mounted partition.

When I booted into NetBSD, I mounted the partition, /dev/dk6, and found it 
didn't look trashed, though there was a warning regarding the dirty flag.

Then I umounted before running fsck_ffs, successfully.

It was not a power problem, I have Opti-UPS.

NetBSD crashed a few times with the partition in question mounted.

Starting X and exiting X are high-crash-risk in NetBSD.

Maybe using the same partition by both FreeBSD and NetBSD induces file system 
errors?  Or maybe it's the NetBSD system crash.

I could be sure to not have any partition on 3 TB hard disk mounted 
unnecessarily when running NetBSD: umount when finished and before running X.



Tom
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Re: fsck not working on messed-up file system

[Erich Dollansky]

Hi,

On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:05:06 -0400
"Thomas Mueller"  wrote:

> Script started on Wed Sep 19 04:15:02 2012
> fsck_ffs /dev/ada0p9

just to make sure: the partition was not mounted when you started fsck?

> Now I wonder if the file system is really fixed, with possibly some
> files in /pkgsrc subdirectories lost, or if the hard drive is
> starting to fail.

You see it soon. I would not bother about a single problem like this. I
have had it over and over again at a location with bad power supply
with a normal PC without UPS.

The hard disk is - one year later - still working in a different
location without any new problems.

Erich
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Re: fsck not working on messed-up file system

[Steve O'Hara-Smith]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:05:06 -0400
"Thomas Mueller"  wrote:

> THE FOLLOWING DISK SECTORS COULD NOT BE READ: 7584318, 7584319,
> ** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
> ** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
> ** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
> ** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
> 1475900 files, 4638292 used, 21162419 free (61643 frags, 2637597 blocks,
> 0.2% fragmentation)
> 
> * FILE SYSTEM STILL DIRTY *
> 
> * PLEASE RERUN FSCK *
> 
> Script done on Wed Sep 19 04:17:27 2012
> 
> 
> Would this indicate a software bug, or is my Western Digital Caviar Green
> 3 TB hard drive failing?

Either something was referencing sectors off the end of the disc,
or the drive is failing. I'd be inclined to copy the data off somewhere
safe and subject the disc to extensive tests with smartctl from
smartmontools, then if it passes recreate the fileystem(s) and restore the
data.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith 
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Re: fsck recoveries, configuration

[Bruce Cran]

On 18/08/2012 07:09, Polytropon wrote:

A can only guess: It probably means that the button is fixed
(mounted) in the machine, e. g. at the front panel.


From 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface :

"ACPI-compliant systems interact with hardware through either a 
"Function Fixed Hardware (FFH) Interface", or a platform-independent 
hardware programming model which relies on platform-specific ACPI 
Machine Language (AML) provided by the original equipment manufacturer 
(OEM).


Function Fixed Hardware interfaces are platform-specific features, 
provided by platform manufacturers for the purposes of performance and 
failure recovery. Standard Intel-based PCs have a fixed function 
interface defined by Intel,[10] which provides a set of core 
functionality that reduces an ACPI-compliant system's need for full 
driver stacks for providing basic functionality during boot time or in 
the case of major system failure."


--
Bruce Cran
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Re: fsck recoveries, configuration

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 23:53:55 -0600, Gary Aitken wrote:
> Hmmm:
> 
> acpi0: <030811 XSDT1017> on motherboard
> acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
> acpi0: reservation of fec0, 1000 (3) failed
> acpi0: reservation of fee0, 1000 (3) failed
> acpi0: reservation of ffb8, 8 (3) failed
> acpi0: reservation of fec1, 20 (3) failed
> acpi0: reservation of fed8, 1000 (3) failed
> acpi0: reservation of 0, a (3) failed
> acpi0: reservation of 10, c7e0 (3) failed
> acpi_button0:  on acpi0

> Do all those reservation failed indicate the interrupt is not
> going to actually be seen?

Seems to be messages related to an improperly implemented ACPI
BIOS I'd assume. Look:

acpi0: reservation of 0, a (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 10, 7fde (3) failed

I also have two of such messages here. In my case, it's a
really cheap home PC (from a discounter).



> What does (fixed) mean?

A can only guess: It probably means that the button is fixed
(mounted) in the machine, e. g. at the front panel.



You could also check in sysctl's output on what state the button
will initiate when pressed (usually S3).



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: fsck recoveries, configuration

[Gary Aitken]

On 08/17/12 22:23, Polytropon wrote:

> Also check the BIOS setup. In most cases, the default configuration
> will assign the button press to a "soft power down", raising the
> proper signal via ACPI. You can also check dmesg's output:
> 
>   acpi_button0:  on acpi0
>   acpi_button1:  on acpi1
> 
> I don't know where this 2nd button is on my system, it only has
> one which - when being pressed - lets the system shut down and
> then power off properly.
> 
> You can find even more elaborate data in sysctl's output:
> 
>   hw.acpi.power_button_state: S5
>   hw.acpi.sleep_button_state: S3
>   dev.acpi_button.0.%desc: Power Button
>   dev.acpi_button.0.%driver: acpi_button
>   dev.acpi_button.0.%location: handle=\_SB_.PWRB
>   dev.acpi_button.0.%pnpinfo: _HID=PNP0C0C _UID=0
>   dev.acpi_button.0.%parent: acpi0
>   dev.acpi_button.1.%desc: Sleep Button
>   dev.acpi_button.1.%driver: acpi_button
>   dev.acpi_button.1.%location: handle=\_SB_.SLPB
>   dev.acpi_button.1.%pnpinfo: _HID=PNP0C0E _UID=0
>   dev.acpi_button.1.%parent: acpi0
>   dev.acpi_button.1.wake: 1
> 
> As I said, my system doesn't have that 2nd "sleep" button anywhere,
> but addressing the power button is correct, the S3 state explained
> as "Commonly referred to as Standby, Sleep, or Suspend to RAM. RAM
> remains powered" is then used as a signal to perform the system
> shutdown as intended.

Hmmm:

acpi0: <030811 XSDT1017> on motherboard
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
acpi0: reservation of fec0, 1000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of fee0, 1000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of ffb8, 8 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of fec1, 20 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of fed8, 1000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 0, a (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 10, c7e0 (3) failed
acpi_timer0: <32-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x808-0x80b on acpi0
cpu0:  on acpi0
cpu1:  on acpi0
cpu2:  on acpi0
cpu3:  on acpi0
acpi_ec0:  port 0x62,0x66 on acpi0
pcib0:  port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
acpi_button0:  on acpi0
attimer0:  port 0x40-0x43 irq 0 on acpi0
atrtc0:  port 0x70-0x71 irq 8 on acpi0
uart0: <16550 or compatible> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
hpet0:  iomem 0xfed0-0xfed003ff on acpi0
atkbdc0:  port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
acpi_throttle0:  on cpu0

Do all those reservation failed indicate the interrupt is not going to actually 
be seen?  What does (fixed) mean?
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Re: fsck recoveries, configuration

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 22:14:47 -0600, Gary Aitken wrote:
> On 08/17/12 21:17, Polytropon wrote:
> > On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 20:44:10 -0600, Gary Aitken wrote:
> >> On 08/17/12 19:05, Polytropon wrote:
>  2.  When my machine hung (could not rlogin or ping), I powered
>  off and rebooted.
> >>>
> >>> Does the machine have a "soft power button" and it is configured
> >>> to issue a "shutdown -p now" (which is quite common)? When you
> >>> have access to the machine, try that. Even if the machine does
> >>> not accept network logins, this mechanism might still work.
> >>
> >> Hmmm.  It has a "soft" power button; have to hold it down 5 sec
> >> or so to power off.
> > 
> > That's the "override time" for a "hard power off". If you only
> > press it once, it should issue "shutdown -p now", but of course
> > this only works if the system is still responding. Even if the
> > keyboard input and screen output, as well as networking services
> > stopped to work, this _might_ still be effective.
> 
> >> Those things can be configured to issue a command that will actually
> >> get executed without a login?
> > 
> > Sure, it has been working for many years. Check the BIOS setup,
> > some machines can be configured to what the button does. The
> > default setup of FreeBSD should perform the correct action via
> > ACPI.
> > 
> > In the past, it also worked with APM. In that case, /etc/apmd.conf
> > would contain the command executed when the button was pressed.
> > On APM-capable machines, the PSU would be switched off, just like
> > today's ACPI-based systems. Of course that only works with ATX
> > power supplies, the AT ones usually had a mechanical switch.
> 
> Ah, I see.  The driver raises a signal the system can respond to.

Yes, it's typically done in the kernel (or by a kernel module).



> >> I assume you're talking about a bios option?  How does that work?
> > 
> > I've seen BIOS setups allowing different actions for the button,
> > from "go to sleep" to "soft power off" or "hard power off". That
> > action (hard power off) is taken when pressing the button for
> > about 5 seconds. The OS can NOT deal with that case.
> > 
> >> sounds like magic of some sort...  Or is this a whole login
> >> sequence with the shutdown at the end?
> > 
> > No, it's a system action using ACPI. No magic involved. :-)
> 
> I'll look at it next time I reboot.  Reading the bios manual, it
> looks like acpi 2.0 support is disabled by default, which may be
> where it is; otherwise I don't see anything obvious.  Thanks.

Also check the BIOS setup. In most cases, the default configuration
will assign the button press to a "soft power down", raising the
proper signal via ACPI. You can also check dmesg's output:

acpi_button0:  on acpi0
acpi_button1:  on acpi1

I don't know where this 2nd button is on my system, it only has
one which - when being pressed - lets the system shut down and
then power off properly.

You can find even more elaborate data in sysctl's output:

hw.acpi.power_button_state: S5
hw.acpi.sleep_button_state: S3
dev.acpi_button.0.%desc: Power Button
dev.acpi_button.0.%driver: acpi_button
dev.acpi_button.0.%location: handle=\_SB_.PWRB
dev.acpi_button.0.%pnpinfo: _HID=PNP0C0C _UID=0
dev.acpi_button.0.%parent: acpi0
dev.acpi_button.1.%desc: Sleep Button
dev.acpi_button.1.%driver: acpi_button
dev.acpi_button.1.%location: handle=\_SB_.SLPB
dev.acpi_button.1.%pnpinfo: _HID=PNP0C0E _UID=0
dev.acpi_button.1.%parent: acpi0
dev.acpi_button.1.wake: 1

As I said, my system doesn't have that 2nd "sleep" button anywhere,
but addressing the power button is correct, the S3 state explained
as "Commonly referred to as Standby, Sleep, or Suspend to RAM. RAM
remains powered" is then used as a signal to perform the system
shutdown as intended.


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: fsck recoveries, configuration

[Gary Aitken]

On 08/17/12 21:17, Polytropon wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 20:44:10 -0600, Gary Aitken wrote:
>> On 08/17/12 19:05, Polytropon wrote:
 2.  When my machine hung (could not rlogin or ping), I powered
 off and rebooted.
>>>
>>> Does the machine have a "soft power button" and it is configured
>>> to issue a "shutdown -p now" (which is quite common)? When you
>>> have access to the machine, try that. Even if the machine does
>>> not accept network logins, this mechanism might still work.
>>
>> Hmmm.  It has a "soft" power button; have to hold it down 5 sec
>> or so to power off.
> 
> That's the "override time" for a "hard power off". If you only
> press it once, it should issue "shutdown -p now", but of course
> this only works if the system is still responding. Even if the
> keyboard input and screen output, as well as networking services
> stopped to work, this _might_ still be effective.

>> Those things can be configured to issue a command that will actually
>> get executed without a login?
> 
> Sure, it has been working for many years. Check the BIOS setup,
> some machines can be configured to what the button does. The
> default setup of FreeBSD should perform the correct action via
> ACPI.
> 
> In the past, it also worked with APM. In that case, /etc/apmd.conf
> would contain the command executed when the button was pressed.
> On APM-capable machines, the PSU would be switched off, just like
> today's ACPI-based systems. Of course that only works with ATX
> power supplies, the AT ones usually had a mechanical switch.

Ah, I see.  The driver raises a signal the system can respond to.

>> I assume you're talking about a bios option?  How does that work?
> 
> I've seen BIOS setups allowing different actions for the button,
> from "go to sleep" to "soft power off" or "hard power off". That
> action (hard power off) is taken when pressing the button for
> about 5 seconds. The OS can NOT deal with that case.
> 
>> sounds like magic of some sort...  Or is this a whole login
>> sequence with the shutdown at the end?
> 
> No, it's a system action using ACPI. No magic involved. :-)

I'll look at it next time I reboot.  Reading the bios manual, it looks like 
acpi 2.0 support is disabled by default, which may be where it is; otherwise I 
don't see anything obvious.  Thanks.


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Re: fsck recoveries, configuration

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 20:44:10 -0600, Gary Aitken wrote:
> On 08/17/12 19:05, Polytropon wrote:
> >> 2.  When my machine hung (could not rlogin or ping), I powered
> >> off and rebooted.
> > 
> > Does the machine have a "soft power button" and it is configured
> > to issue a "shutdown -p now" (which is quite common)? When you
> > have access to the machine, try that. Even if the machine does
> > not accept network logins, this mechanism might still work.
> 
> Hmmm.  It has a "soft" power button; have to hold it down 5 sec
> or so to power off. 

That's the "override time" for a "hard power off". If you only
press it once, it should issue "shutdown -p now", but of course
this only works if the system is still responding. Even if the
keyboard input and screen output, as well as networking services
stopped to work, this _might_ still be effective.



> Those things can be configured to issue a command that will actually
> get executed without a login? 

Sure, it has been working for many years. Check the BIOS setup,
some machines can be configured to what the button does. The
default setup of FreeBSD should perform the correct action via
ACPI.

In the past, it also worked with APM. In that case, /etc/apmd.conf
would contain the command executed when the button was pressed.
On APM-capable machines, the PSU would be switched off, just like
today's ACPI-based systems. Of course that only works with ATX
power supplies, the AT ones usually had a mechanical switch.



> I assume you're talking about a bios option?  How does that work? 

I've seen BIOS setups allowing different actions for the button,
from "go to sleep" to "soft power off" or "hard power off". That
action (hard power off) is taken when pressing the button for
about 5 seconds. The OS can NOT deal with that case.



> sounds like magic of some sort...  Or is this a whole login
> sequence with the shutdown at the end?

No, it's a system action using ACPI. No magic involved. :-)



> >> Reboot did a deferred fsck.
> > 
> > Is this intended? Personally, I'd rather wait some time to boot
> > in a fully checked file system environment then dealing with the
> > uncertain situation of snapshots and background FS check activity.
> > In worst case, I want to be prompted by fsck if a major defect has
> > been found that requires administrator attention.
> > 
> > Put
> > 
> > background_fsck="NO"
> > 
> > into /etc/rc.conf to get this behaviour.
> 
> Yeah, I came to that conclusion...  Thanks.

I _know_ booting a system may take time when the file system
needs repair, but you have to set your priorities: I prefer
waiting 20 minutes instead of running stuff on a damaged
file system.



> >> After it booted I logged in, and also logged in on another system.
> >> On the remote system I could do a ping but rlogin returned
> >> "connection reset by peer", even though I could log in locally.
> > 
> > Does rlogin work when you "give the system some time to recover"?
> 
> yes, if it's not hung -- i.e. done with fsck, I think.  I verified
> that by monitoring the delayed fsck process and as soon as it was
> done the rlogin worked.

It seems that background fsck stops certain services from working...
interesting; another reason for me to avoid it when possible. :-)






-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: fsck recoveries, configuration

[Gary Aitken]

On 08/17/12 19:05, Polytropon wrote:
>> 2.  When my machine hung (could not rlogin or ping), I powered
>> off and rebooted.
> 
> Does the machine have a "soft power button" and it is configured
> to issue a "shutdown -p now" (which is quite common)? When you
> have access to the machine, try that. Even if the machine does
> not accept network logins, this mechanism might still work.

Hmmm.  It has a "soft" power button; have to hold it down 5 sec or so to power 
off.  Those things can be configured to issue a command that will actually get 
executed without a login?  I assume you're talking about a bios option?  How 
does that work?  sounds like magic of some sort...  Or is this a whole login 
sequence with the shutdown at the end?

>> Reboot did a deferred fsck.
> 
> Is this intended? Personally, I'd rather wait some time to boot
> in a fully checked file system environment then dealing with the
> uncertain situation of snapshots and background FS check activity.
> In worst case, I want to be prompted by fsck if a major defect has
> been found that requires administrator attention.
> 
> Put
> 
>   background_fsck="NO"
> 
> into /etc/rc.conf to get this behaviour.

Yeah, I came to that conclusion...  Thanks.

>> After it booted I logged in, and also logged in on another system.
>> On the remote system I could do a ping but rlogin returned
>> "connection reset by peer", even though I could log in locally.
> 
> Does rlogin work when you "give the system some time to recover"?

yes, if it's not hung -- i.e. done with fsck, I think.  I verified that by 
monitoring the delayed fsck process and as soon as it was done the rlogin 
worked.

>> I then attempted to switch consoles using
>>fn
>> but could not.
> 
> That would imply you're still stuck in SUM. A strange constellation
> given that it appears that you have fsck running in background.
> 

It seems to me this is always the case -- delayed fsck waits 60 seconds by 
default to start.  During that time the system has come up multi-user, so it's 
trivial to be logged in under multi-user mode with fsck running.
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Re: fsck recoveries, configuration

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:19:07 -0600, Gary Aitken wrote:
> 1.  It appears to me that the file system (ufs) is not writing
> stuff out when things are idle.  If I do a sync manually and
> leave the machine idle and it crashes later, it comes up clean. 
> If I don't do a sync manually and it crashes later, it often
> comes up needing fsck.  Is there a way to configure the filesystem
> to cache but still write cached stuff at low priority?

Note that even if the OS orders a data write, it's up to the
disk driver to actually tell the disk to do it. And the disk
then _has_ to do it. There is no real "connection" (in time)
for those components of the "task line", even though one would
assume that they happen immediately.

On a somewhat idle system, you could keep a process (e. g. top -S)
running to check system processes that could be responsible for
writes (or missing writes).



> 2.  When my machine hung (could not rlogin or ping), I powered
> off and rebooted.

Does the machine have a "soft power button" and it is configured
to issue a "shutdown -p now" (which is quite common)? When you
have access to the machine, try that. Even if the machine does
not accept network logins, this mechanism might still work.



> Reboot did a deferred fsck. 

Is this intended? Personally, I'd rather wait some time to boot
in a fully checked file system environment then dealing with the
uncertain situation of snapshots and background FS check activity.
In worst case, I want to be prompted by fsck if a major defect has
been found that requires administrator attention.

Put

background_fsck="NO"

into /etc/rc.conf to get this behaviour. Note that as long as fsck
is running, you can't enter any interactive commands, and it will
happen _prior_ to allowing any network connections. Also note that
this is in single user mode, so you can't switch VTs.



> After it booted I logged in, and also logged in on another system. 
> On the remote system I could do a ping but rlogin returned
> "connection reset by peer", even though I could log in locally. 

Does rlogin work when you "give the system some time to recover"?



> I presume that is because the background fscks were not complete?

Possible. Background fsck is uncertain per se, so for diagnostics
better leave it aside and use the maybe "less comfortable" method.
This is easy when you have local access to the machine in question.



> I then did a 
>   ps ax | grep fsck
> and saw only the "logger" process for the deferred fsck's.
> I did a 
>   man logger
> which appeared to hang -- no output.  I'm guessing because it needed
> the filesystems which hadn't yet fsck'd.

Just a guess: Maybe you're experiencing a file system defect and fsck,
even though running in background, needs an input? I'm not really sure
about this, because I'm _intendedly_ not using fsck that way.



> I then attempted to switch consoles using
>   fn
> but could not.

That would imply you're still stuck in SUM. A strange constellation
given that it appears that you have fsck running in background.



> I then attempted to kill the man logger process using ^C with no success.

Waiting / hanging process?



> Can someone shed light on the above sequence of events?  It's highly
> likely some of them occurred before the 60 second delay for fsck
> timed out, but I'd like to understand what the heck is going on.

Try to construct a more _defined_ situation for further diagnostics.
Also you could boot the system up in SUM (use "boot -s") and then
perform fsck manually, just to make sure your disks are fine.




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

I could have provided specifics 25 years ago :) when I was involved
with this stuff on a daily basis.  I have no idea whether it was


same as me. still it is off topic.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[perryh]

Robert Bonomi  wrote:

> > MSDOS/PCDOS had no _documented_ functions to directly access the
> > disks, bypassing the file system, but the functions _did_ exist.
>
> I'm sure you can provide the DOS 'function number' for those calls,
> and cites to published data confirming.

They may have involved a dedicated INT or two, e.g. INT 25H and/or
INT 26H, rather than INT 21H with a function number in AX.

I could have provided specifics 25 years ago :) when I was involved
with this stuff on a daily basis.  I have no idea whether it was
ever published, but it was well known to those of us who were using
it in system-level utilities.

> > The debugger's "read sector" and "write sector" commands used them,
> > and I suspect chkdsk, scandisk, and format probably also used them
> > although I never had occasion to verify one way or the other.
>
> My experince in porting MSDOS 3.1 to a non pc-clone architecture was 
> that fdisk, format, chkdsk, debug, and sys all invoked INT 13H directly.

I've got you beat in seniority :)  I was mostly working on 2.x, and
got out of the business somewhere around 3.1 or 3.2.

I think I'd remember if our stuff had quit working when 3.x came
along, but it's possible that those interfaces were only retained
for compatibility -- to avoid breaking old 3rd-party code -- and
that the MS userland had been revised to call the BIOS directly
(since by then the market consisted almost entirely of PCs and
clones -- decidedly not the case in the 2.0-2.1 timeframe).

BTW fdisk _would_ always have had to use BIOS calls, or some other
platform-specific mechanism, since the direct disk access in DOS was
restricted to the DOS partition(s).  The parameters were something
like buffer address, logical drive number (0 => A:, 2 => C:, etc.),
starting sector within the logical drive, and number of sectors.
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From per...@pluto.rain.com  Sun Jul 22 22:15:48 2012
> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 03:10:40 -0700
> From: per...@pluto.rain.com
> To: bon...@mail.r-bonomi.com
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> Robert Bonomi  wrote:
>
> > MSDOS/PCDOS had -no- O/S functions to directly access actual disk
> > devices.  The ONLY fuctionality provided to the user, by the "O/S"
> > was filesystem based access.  To get 'raw' device access, one had 
> > to bypass the O/S entirely, and use direct BIOS calls (INT 13h).
>
> FALSE TO FACT.
>
> MSDOS/PCDOS had no _documented_ functions to directly access the
> disks, bypassing the file system, but the functions _did_ exist.

I'm sure you can provide the DOS 'function number' for those calls,
and cites to published data confirming.

> The debugger's "read sector" and "write sector" commands used them,
> and I suspect chkdsk, scandisk, and format probably also used them
> although I never had occasion to verify one way or the other.

My experince in porting MSDOS 3.1 to a non pc-clone architecture was 
that fdisk, format, chkdsk, debug, and sys all invoked INT 13H directly.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[perryh]

Robert Bonomi  wrote:

> MSDOS/PCDOS had -no- O/S functions to directly access actual disk
> devices.  The ONLY fuctionality provided to the user, by the "O/S"
> was filesystem based access.  To get 'raw' device access, one had 
> to bypass the O/S entirely, and use direct BIOS calls (INT 13h).

FALSE TO FACT.

MSDOS/PCDOS had no _documented_ functions to directly access the
disks, bypassing the file system, but the functions _did_ exist.
The debugger's "read sector" and "write sector" commands used them,
and I suspect chkdsk, scandisk, and format probably also used them
although I never had occasion to verify one way or the other.
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?freebsd-questions@freebsd.org

[Jerry]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:31:51 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

> Yes, in theory, they _could_ learn everything they need to know to do
> it themselves, but the list of things that a 'know nothing' Windows
> user has to dig out, understand, and _use_, is incredibly long and
> daunting.

I know plenty of "dumber than dirt" *.nix users too. Stupidity is not
limited to race, color, sex or operating system. Actually, they are
smart enough to get themselves an OS that actually works with virtually
all modern hardware and without having to spend countless [hours | days
| weeks] attempting to getting such hardware up and running before
eventually giving up in some cases. You might have heard about "N"
protocol wireless devices that until fairly recently FreeBSD didn't even
know existed. Even now the support is limited; however, that is another
story.

In any case, that is not the subject of this this reply. I have found
"HDDerase.exe" 
to be a useful and in the most important criteria to the FOSS crowd,
free.

Seriously though, isn't it about time to close this thread?


-- 
Jerry ♔

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Michael Ross]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:01:41 +0200, Robert Bonomi  
 wrote:




I haven't had occasion to dissect a copy of format in years, I don't know
if it still defaults to one write attemptto every sector on the disk.




"By default in Windows Vista, the format command writes zeros to the whole  
disk when a full format is performed."


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961/en-us


With the addition of the "passes"-switch, this seems to imply "one write  
attempt per sector", but I didn't find any explicit statement to that  
accord.



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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

system. I'm not sure if such a tool could operate on devices
(instead of filesystem-based representations as "drive letters"),
but it actually _was_ a DOS-based "copy & convert" utility
for the PC. :-)


MSDOS/PCDOS had -no- O/S functions to directly access actual disk
devices.  The ONLY fuctionality provided to the user, by the "O/S"


can we finally stop this off topic thread?

it was about fsck on FAT32 filesystem UNDER FREEBSD (because it is in 
freebsd-questions).


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jerry]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 16:01:41 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

> I haven't had occasion to dissect a copy of format in years, I don't
> know if it still defaults to one write attemptto every sector on the
> disk.

I read on the MS TechNet several years ago that it attempted three
writes per sector. That info may be out of date with the never versions
of the format program however.

-- 
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From: "Michael Ross" 
> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 19:06:04 +0200
>
> On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 17:08:56 +0200, Bruce Cran  wrote:
>
> Microsoft's format.exe can zero a volume, at least in the newer (>2008)  
> versions:
>
> /p: : Zeros every sector on the volume for the number of passes  
> specified.

Early versions of format (until the addition of the '/Q' switch) always over-
wrote the entire disk.  this was how it found the initial 'bad sectors' to
be so marked in the FAT.  As disk capacities increased, the bad block check
took increasingly longer amounts of time.  Hence, along with bad-block
handling (mapping and substitution) moving into the drive electronics,
the introduction of the '/Q' option -- whereby format just overwrote the
fat and root diretory, putting all the data blocks on the free list.

I haven't had occasion to dissect a copy of format in years, I don't know
if it still defaults to one write attemptto every sector on the disk.
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Sun Jul 22 13:15:00 2012
> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 19:12:42 +0100
> From: Bruce Cran 
> To: Polytropon 
> Cc: Wojciech Puchar ,
> freebsd-questions@freebsd.org,
> Robert Bonomi 
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> On 22/07/2012 17:14, Polytropon wrote:
> > Furthermore, in your example using Cygnwin's dd _on_ the disk
> > Cygnwin is currently running from, and the "Windows" it runs
> > on too, doesn't seem like a very good idea. I assume it will
> > result in a bluescreen soon and a _partially_ erased disk.
>
> Sorry, I forgot the say that in this example Windows is booted from 
> \\.\PhysicalDrive1 :)

Which assumes you _have_ \\.\PhysicalDrive1, and have a bootable O/S
on it, *and* know how to make the machine boot from the 'other disk'
*AND* know the 'magic incantation' to invoke the executable to erase
the disk in -that- environmnt.

Care to guess what percentnage of Windows users fits that criteria?

I'm petty sure, albeit without any 'ahrd facts', that it starts with a
decimal point, and several zeroes.


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Sun Jul 22 09:19:24 2012
> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:16:01 +0100
> From: Bruce Cran 
> To: Robert Bonomi 
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> On 22/07/2012 11:38, Robert Bonomi wrote:
> > Needless to say, that approach doesn't work under Windows.  
>
> 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M' works under Cygwin - or you can just 
> write a load of zeros to \\.\PhysicalDrive0 .

I've never seen a Windows installation that _came_with_ cgwin, or  an
'average' Windows user that was capable of (a) findingit, (b) comprehending
-what- it was, (c) downloading it, (d) installing it, or (e) figuring out
how to -use- it.. 

Aside from those 'minor' difficulties, it's a viable solution.

  
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?freebsd-questions@freebsd.org

[Robert Bonomi]

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Sun Jul 22 07:22:29 2012
> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 14:19:43 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Wojciech Puchar 
> To: Thomas Mueller 
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> >
> > Let us securely erase your personal files and pictures for only $49.99.
> and securely copy everything interesting before.
>
> That's truly funny. Someone DO CARE about his/her data being deleted, 
> and... lets someone else in random shop to do this.

And exactly what alternatives _do_ you see for someone who DOES NOT HAVE
THE SKILLS, TOOLS, OR RESOURCES, to 'do it themselves'?

That's a serious question, not an attack.

If someone wants it done, but doesn't have the knowledge/tools/etc. to
do it themselves, it appears to me that they have precisely two realistic
alternatives:
   1) Trust "somebody" to do it, and do it right,
or
   2) simpl DON'T do it.

Putting together what is required to "do it yourself" _is_ out of the
question for _most_ Windows users.   They don't know _what_ they need to
know/learn/have to do the task. Heck they don't know how to find out *what*
they need to find out, to learn what is needed to do the task.

Yes, in theory, they _could_ learn everything they need to know to do it
themselves, but the list of things that a 'know nothing' Windows user has
to dig out, understand, and _use_, is incredibly long and daunting.



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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From: Polytropon 
> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 18:14:02 +0200
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> By the way, I remember I had a DD.EXE program on my old DOS
> system. I'm not sure if such a tool could operate on devices
> (instead of filesystem-based representations as "drive letters"),
> but it actually _was_ a DOS-based "copy & convert" utility
> for the PC. :-)

MSDOS/PCDOS had -no- O/S functions to directly access actual disk
devices.  The ONLY fuctionality provided to the user, by the "O/S"
was filesystem based access.  To get 'raw' device access, one had 
to bypass the O/S entirely, and use direct BIOS calls (INT 13h).

And, _if_ you went the INT 13H route, you had to include your own custom
code in your app for MS 'partition' handling, and possible multiple logical
drives inside a single 'extended partition'.

There was a fairly widely available "INT 13H" program called 'rawrite"
that would copy a file (inside the filesystem on a letter-named drive)
to a raw disk device.  Commonly used for making bootable UNIXesque floppies
under DOS/Windows, from an 'image' file.  There was a companion 'rawread',
that was much less widely distributed -- few people needed to make a
complete disk image file of a physical drive (or logical 'drive letter')
under windows.

Rawread/rawwrite would work for 'cloning' a *SMALL* physical drive, but *ONLY*
if the 'bad sectors' were in the same place(s).  They _weren't_ smart enough
to write the data intended for what turned out to be a 'bad sector' on the 
target drive to "somewhere else", and update the FAT accordingly.  They only
worked on small drives because they only spoke 'CHS' sector addressing, not
LBA.


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From woj...@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl  Sun Jul 22 10:03:46 2012
> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 17:01:59 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Wojciech Puchar 
> To: Bruce Cran 
> cc: Robert Bonomi , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> > 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M' works under Cygwin - or you can 
> > just write a load of zeros to \\.\PhysicalDrive0 .
>
> who prevents you to bood live CD or pendrive with FreeBSD (or 
> openbsd,netbsd,linux,solaris,whatever usable)?

Merely the real-world FACT that *most* Windows users don't _have_ any such
media, _or_ know anthing about how to use it, *if* they had it.  
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Bruce Cran]

On 22/07/2012 17:14, Polytropon wrote:

Furthermore, in your example using Cygnwin's dd _on_ the disk
Cygnwin is currently running from, and the "Windows" it runs
on too, doesn't seem like a very good idea. I assume it will
result in a bluescreen soon and a _partially_ erased disk.


Sorry, I forgot the say that in this example Windows is booted from 
\\.\PhysicalDrive1 :)


--
Bruce Cran
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Duane Hill]

Personally,  I've  always  used a product from http://www.jetico.com/.

On Sunday, July 22, 2012 at 17:06:04 UTC, g...@ross.cx confabulated:

> On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 17:08:56 +0200, Bruce Cran  wrote:

>> On 22/07/2012 16:01, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M' works under Cygwin - or you can  
 just write a load of zeros to \\.\PhysicalDrive0 .
>>>
>>> who prevents you to bood live CD or pendrive with FreeBSD (or  
>>> openbsd,netbsd,linux,solaris,whatever usable)?
>>
>> Nobody - I didn't say users couldn't boot from a FreeBSD/etc live CD,  
>> but zeroing the disk in Cygwin is an alternative.
>>

> Microsoft's format.exe can zero a volume, at least in the newer (>2008)
> versions:

> /p: : Zeros every sector on the volume for the number of passes
> specified.


> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730730(v=ws.10)

-- 
If at first you don't succeed...
...so much for skydiving.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Michael Ross]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 17:08:56 +0200, Bruce Cran  wrote:


On 22/07/2012 16:01, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M' works under Cygwin - or you can  
just write a load of zeros to \\.\PhysicalDrive0 .


who prevents you to bood live CD or pendrive with FreeBSD (or  
openbsd,netbsd,linux,solaris,whatever usable)?


Nobody - I didn't say users couldn't boot from a FreeBSD/etc live CD,  
but zeroing the disk in Cygwin is an alternative.




Microsoft's format.exe can zero a volume, at least in the newer (>2008)  
versions:


/p: : Zeros every sector on the volume for the number of passes  
specified.



http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730730(v=ws.10)


Regards,

Michael


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Polytropon]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 16:08:56 +0100, Bruce Cran wrote:
> On 22/07/2012 16:01, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
> >> 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M' works under Cygwin - or you can 
> >> just write a load of zeros to \\.\PhysicalDrive0 .
> >
> > who prevents you to bood live CD or pendrive with FreeBSD (or 
> > openbsd,netbsd,linux,solaris,whatever usable)?
> 
> Nobody - I didn't say users couldn't boot from a FreeBSD/etc live CD, 
> but zeroing the disk in Cygwin is an alternative.

Installing Cygwin on a "Windows" PC is nothing an average user
could achieve easily. The _idea_ of booting something else is
also no typical approach. That's why professional companies
offer a paid service so the user does not have to invest his
valuable time in educating himself about alternatives what
he cannot do _natively_ with his "Windows". It's a simple
market decision which seems to work (or they wouldn't care
to offer it).

Furthermore, in your example using Cygnwin's dd _on_ the disk
Cygnwin is currently running from, and the "Windows" it runs
on too, doesn't seem like a very good idea. I assume it will
result in a bluescreen soon and a _partially_ erased disk.

By the way, I remember I had a DD.EXE program on my old DOS
system. I'm not sure if such a tool could operate on devices
(instead of filesystem-based representations as "drive letters"),
but it actually _was_ a DOS-based "copy & convert" utility
for the PC. :-)



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Bruce Cran]

On 22/07/2012 16:01, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M' works under Cygwin - or you can 
just write a load of zeros to \\.\PhysicalDrive0 .


who prevents you to bood live CD or pendrive with FreeBSD (or 
openbsd,netbsd,linux,solaris,whatever usable)?


Nobody - I didn't say users couldn't boot from a FreeBSD/etc live CD, 
but zeroing the disk in Cygwin is an alternative.


--
Bruce Cran
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M' works under Cygwin - or you can just 
write a load of zeros to \\.\PhysicalDrive0 .


who prevents you to bood live CD or pendrive with FreeBSD (or 
openbsd,netbsd,linux,solaris,whatever usable)?




--
Bruce Cran
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Bruce Cran]

On 22/07/2012 11:38, Robert Bonomi wrote:

Needless to say, that approach doesn't work under Windows.  


'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M' works under Cygwin - or you can just 
write a load of zeros to \\.\PhysicalDrive0 .


--
Bruce Cran
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

Let us securely erase your personal files and pictures for only $49.99.

and securely copy everything interesting before.

That's truly funny. Someone DO CARE about his/her data being deleted, 
and... lets someone else in random shop to do this.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 05:52:17 -0400
> From: "Thomas Mueller" 
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> Regarding the security of various methods of deleting data, I just saw in 
> Office Depot's online ad for the coming week, which is the reason I 
> couldn't post this any earlier:
>
>Need to discard an old PC but worried about protecting your identity?
>
>Let us securely erase your personal files and pictures for only $49.99.
>
>We use the only permanent data deletion software certified by NIAP, used 
>by the Department of Defense and Fortune 500 Companies.
>
> (quoting verbatim but formatting not preserved)
>
> URL was
>
> http://officedepot.shoplocal.com/OfficeDepot/BrowseByPage?storeid=2501355&;
> promotionviewmode=1&promotioncode=OfficeDepot-120722&listingid=0&sneakpeek
> =N#
>
> Personally, I'd save the money, time and gasoline too, and use dd 
> if=/dev/zero of=/dev/(disk-to-be-deleted) bs=1M
>
> from FreeBSD or other (quasi)-Unix OS.

Needless to say, that approach doesn't work under Windows.  

For *most* users, that approach _is_ probably adewuate.  *if* the have
the know-how to use it.

However, for a _lot_ of end users, the situation is not quite that simple.

Trying to wipe the disk that the O/S is running from is fraught with
unexpected failure modes.

Lots of 'end user' machines have only _one_ drive in them, and the users
do not have any other 'bootable' media available, that they know how to
use.  


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Thomas Mueller]

Regarding the security of various methods of deleting data, I just saw in 
Office Depot's online ad for the coming week, which is the reason I couldn't 
post this any earlier:

Need to discard an old PC but worried about protecting your identity?

Let us securely erase your personal files and pictures for only $49.99.

We use the only permanent data deletion software certified by NIAP, used by the 
Department of Defense and Fortune 500 Companies.

(quoting verbatim but formatting not preserved)

URL was 

http://officedepot.shoplocal.com/OfficeDepot/BrowseByPage?storeid=2501355&promotionviewmode=1&promotioncode=OfficeDepot-120722&listingid=0&sneakpeek=N#

Personally, I'd save the money, time and gasoline too, and use dd if=/dev/zero 
of=/dev/(disk-to-be-deleted) bs=1M

from FreeBSD or other (quasi)-Unix OS.

Or if that's not good enough, DBAN which is on the System Rescue CD 
(sysresccd.org).

I suppose the average MS-Windows user is not aware of these money-saving 
methods.

Tom
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

Seriously though, I wish people would stop feeding this TROLL. There is
absolutely no upside to it. As has been stated so eloquently many times
before, "Never argue with a fool - they will drag you down to their
level, then beat you with experience."

so why you are continuing that thread?

People like you tend to classify others as a troll because you just don't 
agree. sad.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

It seems like all you know how to do is engage in ignorant, uninformed,
personal attacks/insults.


if you would read more carefully then you will see clearly that i am 
personally attacked most often.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jerry]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 05:12:14 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

> > Wojciech Puchar 
> >
> > > entitled to have opinions, *BUT* the "Gospel According to
> > > Wojciech" is -not- 'the answer' for everybody, in every
> > > situation. *IF* you ever learn that,
> >
> > Seems like you have 45 years of experience in words. nothing more.
> 
> It seems like all you know how to do is engage in ignorant,
> uninformed, personal attacks/insults.
> 
> Not that it matters, but -- in addition to having had a news story I
> wrote published on the front page of the N.Y. Times (midwest edition)
> -- I've: a) Designed and implemented trans-national, trans-atlantic
> corporate data network for the trading arm of a major Japanese bank.
>   b) implemented "array of pointer to function" in FORTRAN 77
> applications. c) Written date parsing routines, originally in FORTRAN
> 66,  that would recognize virtually -any- 'rational' date expression
> -- including the likes of "this 23rd day of June in the Year of Our
> Lord 2012". had a switch for 'prefering' European-syle (DD MM YY) or
> American-style (MM DD YY) dates when ambiguous.  User-manual for the
> free-form command parser merely specified a 'date' was required at a
> particular point, would frequently generate user inquires 'what date
> _format_ is required?' Answer: "Use what you prefer, it will probably
> make sense out of it" d) Written the _first_ commodity-options
> 'theoretical value' calculation routine that was fast enough to be
> used in 'real time' in determining 'fair value' for exchange-traded
> commodity options.  When the source data may change in a fractiono of
> a second, Doing 'Cox-Ross-Rubenstein' math *before* the underling
> data changes -- invalidating the calculation- in-progress -- is
> challenging.  Doing it for the -entire- market, which requires
> sub-millisecond timing, is far more than just 'challenging'. e)
> Written the worlds fastest project scheduling software (merely 4000
> times faster than IBM's offering at the time).  After I demoed the
> software for over a dozen senior IBM construction executives, they
> contracted with the firm I worked for, for project scheuling services
> for -all- their major physicaal plant construction projects.  U.S.
> Army Corps of Engineers also bought a copy. f) Wrote the _first_
> PC-based software for 'off-line' creation of control-files for a
> high-end video-tape editing suite.  File format _entirely_
> undocumented, required 'reverse-engineering' of everthing. g)
> Designed and implemented a complete _real-time_ market price data
> distribution system (everything from the incoming feed processing to
> the subroutinies that the 'user applications' used) for a major
> Government Securities brokerage.  Stand-alone code on dedicated
> processors for each incoming feed, feeding a back-end server, with
> multiplexing daemons on each workstation, to support multiple
> simultaneous applications. Commplete with application-level
> transparency for the crash/auto-restart of any system-level
> component, and auto release of resources previousl allocated to
> now-zombie clients. Everthing _guaranteed_, by architecture design to
> be non-blocking, _impossible_ for one client app to adversely affect
> quote delivery to other apps, even on the same machine. h) Designed
> and built a complete 'subscription publiication' accounting system --
> complete 'subscriber management'. billing, payment, earned- income
> handling, -and- 'fulfillment' processing. i) Written
> 'hyupervisor' (for lack of a better term) code for a mini- computer
> system, to automate a management task on that machine that the
> _manufacturer_ of the hardare and O/S said could _not_ be automated.

Big deal; so what have you done lately. :-)

Seriously though, I wish people would stop feeding this TROLL. There is
absolutely no upside to it. As has been stated so eloquently many times
before, "Never argue with a fool - they will drag you down to their
level, then beat you with experience."

> > Aggression is normal today from such people, that have "good
> > position" in some companies and fear anyone could read any other
> > than "established" opinions.
> 
> That is an amazingly accurate description of _YOU_, Wociech -- You
> might consider why you feel it necessary to _personally_attack_
> anyone and everyone who "has the nerve to disagree with your
> _opinions_".

-- 
Jerry ♔

Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored.
Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 20:18:48 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Wojciech Puchar 
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> > Indeed.
> >
> > But getting GELI certified and approved by the relevant
> > institutions and agencies isn't that easy either. Yet without
>
> no idea what are you talking about. 

Then you would be well advised to keep pie-hole shut.  Doing otherwise,
as Lincoln put it, "removes all doubt."

> As for any government agencies and corporations why you care about their 
> problems?

Does it even *occur* to you that some people use FreeBSD in _business_
operations?  Business (or even government) operations which just might 
have to comply with _laws_ that limit them to using resources that have
been "certified" as doing what the law requires such tools do?

C.P. has made it clear that she _is_ in am environment where compliance
with government edicts on the subject of security _is_ an operational
requirement.  Including the mandatory use of 'certified' solutions for
particcular issues.  In her environment, geli could be used 'in addition
to' a mandatory, "certified" solution, but *NOT* 'by itself' as a means
of dealing with that mandatory requirement -- because it is *not* and
approved and 'certified' means of satisfying that requirement.

Whether or not you agree with, or even _understand_, the nature of the 
requirement is immaterial, and irrelevant to C.P.'s situation.

She _does_ have to deal with those requirements, which you do not -- your
lack of comprension of that =fact= not withstaning.



--q6LBAU6u007680.1342869030/mail.r-bonomi.com--

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Thu Jul 19 03:21:28 2012
> Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:18:43 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Wojciech Puchar 
> To: Robert Bonomi 
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> > entitled to have opinions, *BUT* the "Gospel According to Wojciech" is 
> > -not- 'the answer' for everybody, in every situation. *IF* you ever 
> > learn that,
>
> Seems like you have 45 years of experience in words. nothing more.

It seems like all you know how to do is engage in ignorant, uninformed,
personal attacks/insults.

Not that it matters, but -- in addition to having had a news story I wrote
published on the front page of the N.Y. Times (midwest edition) -- I've:
  a) Designed and implemented trans-national, trans-atlantic corporate
 data network for the trading arm of a major Japanese bank.
  b) implemented "array of pointer to function" in FORTRAN 77 applications.
  c) Written date parsing routines, originally in FORTRAN 66,  that would
 recognize virtually -any- 'rational' date expression -- including
 the likes of "this 23rd day of June in the Year of Our Lord 2012".
 had a switch for 'prefering' European-syle (DD MM YY) or American-style
 (MM DD YY) dates when ambiguous.  User-manual for the free-form command
 parser merely specified a 'date' was required at a particular point,
 would frequently generate user inquires 'what date _format_ is required?'
 Answer: "Use what you prefer, it will probably make sense out of it"
  d) Written the _first_ commodity-options 'theoretical value' calculation
 routine that was fast enough to be used in 'real time' in determining
 'fair value' for exchange-traded commodity options.  When the source
 data may change in a fractiono of a second, Doing 'Cox-Ross-Rubenstein'
 math *before* the underling data changes -- invalidating the calculation-
 in-progress -- is challenging.  Doing it for the -entire- market, which
 requires  sub-millisecond timing, is far more than just 'challenging'.
  e) Written the worlds fastest project scheduling software (merely 4000 
 times faster than IBM's offering at the time).  After I demoed the
 software for over a dozen senior IBM construction executives, they
 contracted with the firm I worked for, for project scheuling services
 for -all- their major physicaal plant construction projects.  U.S.
 Army Corps of Engineers also bought a copy.
  f) Wrote the _first_ PC-based software for 'off-line' creation of
 control-files for a high-end video-tape editing suite.  File format
 _entirely_ undocumented, required 'reverse-engineering' of everthing.
  g) Designed and implemented a complete _real-time_ market price data 
 distribution system (everything from the incoming feed processing 
 to the subroutinies that the 'user applications' used) for a major 
 Government Securities brokerage.  Stand-alone code on dedicated 
 processors for each incoming feed, feeding a back-end server, with
 multiplexing daemons on each workstation, to support multiple 
 simultaneous applications. Commplete with application-level transparency
 for the crash/auto-restart of any system-level component, and auto
 release of resources previousl allocated to now-zombie clients.
 Everthing _guaranteed_, by architecture design to be non-blocking,
 _impossible_ for one client app to adversely affect quote delivery
 to other apps, even on the same machine.
  h) Designed and built a complete 'subscription publiication' accounting
 system -- complete 'subscriber management'. billing, payment, earned-
 income handling, -and- 'fulfillment' processing.
  i) Written 'hyupervisor' (for lack of a better term) code for a mini-
 computer system, to automate a management task on that machine that
 the _manufacturer_ of the hardare and O/S said could _not_ be automated.

> Aggression is normal today from such people, that have "good position" in 
> some companies and fear anyone could read any other than "established" 
> opinions.

That is an amazingly accurate description of _YOU_, Wociech -- You might 
consider why you feel it necessary to _personally_attack_ anyone and 
everyone who "has the nerve to disagree with your _opinions_".



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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

Indeed.

But getting GELI certified and approved by the relevant
institutions and agencies isn't that easy either. Yet without


no idea what are you talking about. For your own use you don't need 
anyones certification. You need safe solution. geli just do this.


As for any government agencies and corporations why you care about their 
problems?

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[C. P. Ghost]

On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Wojciech Puchar
 wrote:
>> regulations have been tightened further recently as to mandate
>> sector-level encryption of the hard disks as well, just to be on the
>> sure(rer) side. At least in certain particularly sensitive areas.
>
> which may be a proof that governments know backdoors alloving recovery
> from encrypted drives using builtin "hardware encryption" (FDE).
>
> Not that easy with geli ;)

Indeed.

But getting GELI certified and approved by the relevant
institutions and agencies isn't that easy either. Yet without
getting both, we aren't allowed to rely on GELI as the sole
encryption-provider. As an add-on on top of a certified solution,
GELI wouldn't hurt though: it's a decent piece of code.

-cpghost.

-- 
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

regulations have been tightened further recently as to mandate
sector-level encryption of the hard disks as well, just to be on the
sure(rer) side. At least in certain particularly sensitive areas.


which may be a proof that governments know backdoors alloving recovery
from encrypted drives using builtin "hardware encryption" (FDE).

Not that easy with geli ;)
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[C. P. Ghost]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 4:53 AM, Robert Bonomi  wrote:
> All I'm going to say is:
>   1) There's a _reason_ the gov't requires hard drives with anthing higher
>  than 'somewhat' classified data on them to be =physically= destroyed
>  before leving the secure area.

Speaking from experience, I confirm that it's true. However,
regulations have been tightened further recently as to mandate
sector-level encryption of the hard disks as well, just to be on the
sure(rer) side. At least in certain particularly sensitive areas.

>   2) As of 2007, 'over-writing' data (regardless of how many times) is *not*
>  sufficient, any more, for _any_ military purposes.

Yes. With enough resources, it is possible to read lower magnetic
layers of HDDs, at least partially. And with SDDs, it's trivial to locate
the old sectors, because their firmware doesn't overwrite the same
physical spots for obvious reasons.

That's why sector-level disk encryption is paramount nowadays.
And that opens a whole new Pandora's box of key management
issues and vulnerabilities. ;-)

-cpghost.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:26:57 +0200 (CEST), Wojciech Puchar wrote:
> > agencies recover overwritten data?" at
> >
> >   http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-gutmann.html
> 
> at first - it should be asked "can agencies recover your data without 
> being overwritten" first.

Sure, because it's stored on Facebook & in the Cloud. :-)



> Finally use geli (or similar method) ALWAYS, no matter if you have highly 
> important data, naked girls photos or just games. Just to say NO to 
> any government agencies that terrorize you using your own money.
> 
> At least in Poland you are not required by law to provide any passwords. 
> Encryption is legal.

That depends on local legislation. As you said, it's legal in
Poland, but it's not in the UK anymore, if I understood it
correctly.

Related article, I thought I'd share it with the list:

http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/12/in-the-uk-you-will-go-to-jail-not-just-for-encryption-but-for-astronomical-noise-too/

It also contains a link to the actual law.



> Can all paranoid here finally put their hard drives to fire so they will 
> heat over curie point, and then - end that offtopic?

Why pollute the environment with fire? What's wrong with a good
old-fashioned hammer session, executed on the disk platters? :-)



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

agencies recover overwritten data?" at

  http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-gutmann.html


at first - it should be asked "can agencies recover your data without 
being overwritten" first.


just use geli(8)

then second problem is even less problem.

Finally use geli (or similar method) ALWAYS, no matter if you have highly 
important data, naked girls photos or just games. Just to say NO to 
any government agencies that terrorize you using your own money.


At least in Poland you are not required by law to provide any passwords. 
Encryption is legal.


At second - the basic claim that overwriting 1 with 1 differs from 
overwriting 0 with 1 at magnetization level is quite a proof of lack of 
understanding physics. Hint: magnetic hysteresis. What hard drive 
manufacturers want is to use magnetic material with largest hysteresis so 
difference between one and zero is highest.



Can all paranoid here finally put their hard drives to fire so they will 
heat over curie point, and then - end that offtopic?


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

How about data stored in remapped sectors, or any flash cache?


how about being able to restore random 0.1% of former user data.

Not really useful.

Flash cache is quite recent idea, nobody serious would like to scrap such 
a drive instead of reuse.



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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Daniel Feenberg]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2012, Carmel wrote:


On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:15:17 +0200 (CEST)
Wojciech Puchar articulated:


 1) There's a _reason_ the gov't requires hard drives with anthing
higher than 'somewhat' classified data on them to be =physically=
destroyed before leving the secure area.


no. for modern hard drives it was already proved that

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk bs=1m

is enough to make data unreadable.

for very old drives it may not


Would you be so kind as to point out the proof of that statement?
Please provide an address or location where the documentation
supporting that statement can be found. By the way, "NOT READABLE" is
not equal to "UNRECOVERABLE".


I hesitate to intervene in this dispute, but my posting "Can intelligence 
agencies recover overwritten data?" at


   http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-gutmann.html

will iluminate this discussion.

dan feenberg



--
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carmel...@hotmail.com


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Bruce Cran]

On 19/07/2012 09:15, Wojciech Puchar wrote:

no. for modern hard drives it was already proved that

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk bs=1m

is enough to make data unreadable.

for very old drives it may not


How about data stored in remapped sectors, or any flash cache?
The Secure Erase command 
(https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase) may clear all 
that data too, but without any guarantees it's better to destroy the 
disk than risk leaving classified data on it.


--
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jakub Lach]

Follow up is even more interesting than epilogue, 
especially:

"Another problem with the article is the fact that 
a magnetic force microscope, which is a scanning
probe microscope, is nothing like an electron 
microscope, and yet the article repeatedly refers to 
using an electron microscope to try and recover data 
(the same mistake has also been pointed out by 
others). So saying "the chances of recovery of any 
amount of data from a drive using an electron 
microscope are negligible" is quite true, in the 
same way that saying "the chances of recovery 
of any amount of data from a drive using an 
optical microscope are negligible" is true"

And DiskStroyer kit made me chuckle.

If I comprehend it correctly, that doesn't
make Gutmann method obsolete in principle,
it only means that those passes were tailored at
(various) old technology, and on modern drives 
could be bit overkill and just as good as random 
scrubs.

That's still makes a robust procedure, even If
overkill and dated (which isn't exactly bad 
thing).

Thanks for replies.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[jb]

Wojciech Puchar  wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> writes:

> ...

This should clear up some confusion. Will it ?

Disk Wiping One Pass Is Enough
http://www.anti-forensics.com/disk-wiping-one-pass-is-enough
...

---
http://www.anti-forensics.com/disk-wiping-one-pass-is-enough-part-2-this-time-wi
th-screenshots
...
What about magnetic force microscopy?
...
Sans Computer Forensics on Magnetic Force Microscopy
...
Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory 
by Peter Gutmann (35 pass wipe originated from Mr. Gutmann)
...
---

...
So why are there so many recommendations for multiple passes during disk 
wiping?
...
"Another method I use quite a bit is to just hook a drive up to a Linux system
or pop a bootable Live CD in the machine and boot into a Linux environment to
use the "DD" command. It can be as simple as this:
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/[DISK HERE]
"

Enjoy it !
jb
 


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

can add "FreeBSD knowledge" to their CV.


That statement goes beyond stupid. At some point, everyone is a

You proved well enough about what "stupid" means.
esp your mail "carmel...@hotmail.com"

that's truly a mail address that System Admin should be proud of ;)

At least you don't worry about backups. Hotmail (or gmail or else) do 
archive everything you ever sent or received so you don't fear data loss.



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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Michael Ross]

Am 19.07.2012, 13:27 Uhr, schrieb Jakub Lach :


This topic went totally off, but anyway there are interesting bits,
do you say that e.g. Gutmann method is totally unneeded?



You may be interested in the epilogue to Gutmann's paper:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html#Epilogue

Quote:
"For any modern PRML/EPRML drive, a few passes of random scrubbing is the  
best you can do. As the paper says, "A good scrubbing with random data  
will do about as well as can be expected". This was true in 1996, and is  
still true now."



Nice picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MFM_AFM_JANUSZ_REBIS_INFOCENTRE_PL_HDD_MAGNETIC_MEMORY_EVOLUTION.png



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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Carmel]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:49:50 +0200 (CEST)
Wojciech Puchar articulated:

> > Otherwise, you may run the danger of building a wall around
> > yourself.
> 
> everyone should judge by his/her own brain which opinions are right.
> 
> Actually in every moment i try to encourage EVERYONE to turn on
> his/her brain that we all have but rarely use.
> 
> To be ever able to use ones brain properly all "widely known truth", 
> "standard practices" etc.. should be forgotten at least for a moment.

Citation needed & examples please.

> Mantras are always against clear thinking and understanding.

I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "mantras".
 
> The most important repeated mantra i am righting is that FreeBSD (or
> any Free unix) should be "easier to newbies".

Citation needed.

> This already killed linux long time ago, NetBSD too, and going to
> kill FreeBSD.

Really, I must have missed the funeral.
 
> Most of "newbies" are not the ones that are likely to learn anything.
> They want click-click interface to install and run something so they
> can add "FreeBSD knowledge" to their CV.

That statement goes beyond stupid. At some point, everyone is a
"newbie". If your statement is to be taken at face value, then the
majority of new users would, according to you, never bother to learn
anything. You might want to try and back that up with some verifiable
facts. Furthermore, in regards to your "click-click interface"
statement, the Ubuntu operating system is gaining traction everyday.
Everyone is not locked into the c.1990's.

> They can do ONLY harm to FreeBSD.

Citation needed.

> Some get hired and results in problems described in thread "Help
> solving the sysadm's nightmare" for the man hired after them..
>  
> > While it is not a case here, I have seen few people on other lists
> > to do the same just because they were not able to comprehend a
> > topic discussed, and in frustration they killfiled the person
> > involved.

I have witnessed your posts on Dovecot being ridiculed as nothing more
than TROLLing.

> it's still nothing wrong to add a rule to redirect someones (mine)
> mail to /dev/null, but the way they do this:
> 
> - showing whole world they do this
> - showing whole world their .procmailrc (so happy they finally learnt
> procmail?)
> - performing personal attacks every time they disagree.

"procmail" -- really? While everyone is free to use what ever solution
they find advantageous, I would certainly not recommend "procmail".
Procmail is widely used on Unix-based systems and stable, but no longer
maintained. Many users have switched to maildrop. Personally, I prefer
"sieve" with Dovecot. Just a personal preference and yet far more
robust.

> Doesn't look like serious people's behavior.

Your actions mimic that of a TROLL. You make blanket statements sans any
verifiable proof or documentation; i.e. "dd" being the ultimate disk
recovery utility or its ability to absolutely, positively erase any HD
without any possibility of it being recovered.

I can understand why informed users might block you. I think I will be
following their lead. It seems that you have managed to annoy,
infuriate and offend users on at least two lists, this one and Dovecot,
and I am sure several others as well. At least you have a perfect
batting average.

-- 
Carmel ✌
carmel...@hotmail.com

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jakub Lach]

This topic went totally off, but anyway there are interesting bits, 
do you say that e.g. Gutmann method is totally unneeded?

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

for very old drives it may not


Would you be so kind as to point out the proof of that statement?


sorry but i didn't save that article on hard drive. So no proof if you 
don't believe me i've actually read it.


The main point is that you have

- track
- intra-track gap
- finite precision of writing head positioning.

When you write on track second time, head isn't positioned exactly as 
before so very thin stripe of previous recording remain.


With sophisticated enough tools you may recover it, requiring like 10 
times smaller head than normal.


With modern drives size of magnetic domains are larger than this 
imperfection. If drive record properly this "stripes" of leftover 
recording are just too small to be stable.


Even if it would, no hardware exist to do this, except maybe scanning 
electron microscope which would take years to scan whole surface of disk 
IMHO.


Not sure if it can "see" surface magnetization as i don't precisely know 
how such microscope works.


But i know it needs some time to scan even tiny thing.




Please provide an address or location where the documentation
supporting that statement can be found. By the way, "NOT READABLE" is
not equal to "UNRECOVERABLE".


yes i know the difference.

Finally i am not sure if "bulk erases" can actually erase drives, for sure 
they can destroy disk electronics so disk appears cleared.


The field needed to clear modern magnetic media are just enormous. They 
are enormous under normal operation of disk, but power is small as track 
width is defined in nanometers.


If it would be my data to be erased i would just do
dd if=/dev/zero of=disk bs=..

or if really paranoid then after this

dd if=/dev/urandom of=disk bs=..



or if very paranoid then will just put that drives into fireplace, 
which would heat them over curie point which would definitely 
demagnetize whole media.


more sure than bulk eraser, and definitely secure, for free.
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Carmel]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:15:17 +0200 (CEST)
Wojciech Puchar articulated:

> >  1) There's a _reason_ the gov't requires hard drives with anthing
> > higher than 'somewhat' classified data on them to be =physically=
> > destroyed before leving the secure area.
> 
> no. for modern hard drives it was already proved that
> 
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk bs=1m
> 
> is enough to make data unreadable.
> 
> for very old drives it may not

Would you be so kind as to point out the proof of that statement?
Please provide an address or location where the documentation
supporting that statement can be found. By the way, "NOT READABLE" is
not equal to "UNRECOVERABLE".

-- 
Carmel ✌
carmel...@hotmail.com


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

Otherwise, you may run the danger of building a wall around yourself.


everyone should judge by his/her own brain which opinions are right.

Actually in every moment i try to encourage EVERYONE to turn on his/her 
brain that we all have but rarely use.


To be ever able to use ones brain properly all "widely known truth", 
"standard practices" etc.. should be forgotten at least for a moment.


Mantras are always against clear thinking and understanding.

The most important repeated mantra i am righting is that FreeBSD (or any 
Free unix) should be "easier to newbies".


This already killed linux long time ago, NetBSD too, and going to kill 
FreeBSD.


Most of "newbies" are not the ones that are likely to learn anything.
They want click-click interface to install and run something so they can 
add "FreeBSD knowledge" to their CV.


They can do ONLY harm to FreeBSD.

Some get hired and results in problems described in thread "Help solving 
the sysadm's nightmare" for the man hired after them..




While it is not a case here, I have seen few people on other lists to do
the same just because they were not able to comprehend a topic discussed, and
in frustration they killfiled the person involved.


it's still nothing wrong to add a rule to redirect someones (mine) mail to 
/dev/null, but the way they do this:


- showing whole world they do this
- showing whole world their .procmailrc (so happy they finally learnt procmail?)
- performing personal attacks every time they disagree.

Doesn't look like serious people's behavior.
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[jb]

Jerry  seibercom.net> writes:

> ... 
> I couldn't have said it better myself. Wojciech lives in his own little
> world, which is fine as long as he doesn't try to visit mine. He sounds
> like he works at a small Polish SMB, more commonly referred to as a
> SOHO in more developed countries. I have just blocked him so I don't
> have to read his TROLLish bullshit.

Hi Jerry,

while I respect your personal decision to /dev/null Wojciech, it seems to me
that you are firing with a big gun and actually hurting yourself.

If you join a public list you must be prepared to hear opinions that are
different from yours, controversial, . These opinions, valid or
not, give you an understanding of "what is going on" in the field of interest.
Otherwise, you may run the danger of building a wall around yourself.

While it is not a case here, I have seen few people on other lists to do
the same just because they were not able to comprehend a topic discussed, and
in frustration they killfiled the person involved.

Similarly, all cry babies who for the same reasons want to ban/moderate out/
whatever people from a list irritate me as well.

There is an old saying that 'you should not enter the kitchen if you can not
stand the heat".

So, if you can not change it, relax and enjoy it :-)

jb


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

entitled to have opinions, *BUT* the "Gospel According to Wojciech" is -not-
'the answer' for everybody, in every situation. *IF* you ever learn that,


Seems like you have 45 years of experience in words. nothing more.

Aggression is normal today from such people, that have "good position" in 
some companies and fear anyone could read any other than "established" 
opinions.


That's all.

Still I already see FreeBSD future is to get fd up completely, as such 
people tend to dominate such a forum.


The question is how long.
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

 1) There's a _reason_ the gov't requires hard drives with anthing higher
than 'somewhat' classified data on them to be =physically= destroyed
before leving the secure area.


no. for modern hard drives it was already proved that

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk bs=1m

is enough to make data unreadable.

for very old drives it may not
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

developed countries.


Not really sure what you wanted to imply,
as "SMB" looks like americanism to me.

as well as SOHO.

As not the first time, some people here when lacking arguments say "i work 
for larger company". "We have more servers in one place".


Esp. second is nopt something to be proud about.

more and more such people, and complete newbies or "IT specialists" 
dominate this forum. sad.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:58:22 +0200
> From: "Julian H. Stacey" 
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem? 
>
> Hi Robert, cc questions@ cc postmaster@ (***)
>
> > What I am is an information systems professional with 45 years 
> > experience.
>
> Interesting reading that & your prior post.
>  'Edge of the track, & turn up the op. amps'
>   has been an interesting technique for decades, I first read of it maybe 
>   70's or 80's ?  I bet some, eg in government or private espionage, & 
>   desperate incompetent bankers, & their employed service firms, probably 
>   had fun seeing what was possible. (Envy ;-)

All I'm going to say is:
  1) There's a _reason_ the gov't requires hard drives with anthing higher 
 than 'somewhat' classified data on them to be =physically= destroyed 
 before leving the secure area.
  2) As of 2007, 'over-writing' data (regardless of how many times) is *not*
 sufficient, any more, for _any_ military purposes.


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jakub Lach]

-offtopic-

(...)

> like he works at a small Polish SMB, more 
> commonly referred to as a  SOHO in more 
> developed countries.

Not really sure what you wanted to imply, 
as "SMB" looks like americanism to me. 

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Julian H. Stacey]

Hi Robert,
cc questions@
cc postmaster@ (***)

> What I am is an information systems professional with 45 years experience.

Interesting reading that & your prior post.
'Edge of the track, & turn up the op. amps' 
has been an interesting technique for decades, I
first read of it maybe 70's or 80's ?  I bet some,
eg in government or private espionage, & desperate
incompetent bankers, & their employed service firms,
probably had fun seeing what was possible. (Envy ;-)

BTW I too wrote a recoverer way back, just for floppies
http://berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/jhs/bin/public/valid/
Worked very well, recovered data while wearing
media out.  I ported it to FreeBSD, but it was
never as good there, I never hacked BSD drivers to
support it to do bit averaging if all CRCs failed.

(***) Re.:
Wojciech Puchar 
People could ask
 (cc'd)
to block troll Wojciech Puchar.  His blinkered noise pollutes too often,
while too many have failed to reason with him, on too many subjects on
questions@ & hackers@.  I & someone on hackers@ already filter out his noise.
http://berklix.com/~jhs/dots/.procmailrc.lists

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
 Reply below not above, cumulative like a play script, & indent with "> ".
 Format: Plain text. Not HTML, multipart/alternative, base64, quoted-printable.
 Mail from Yahoo & Hotmail dumped @Berklix.  http://berklix.org/yahoo/
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jerry]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2012 07:47:02 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

> > From: Wojciech Puchar 
> >
> > >>> Surely SpinRite is "more clever" than that,
> > >> i would bet otherwise. simple tools and free tools are always
> > >> better
> > >
> > > You continue to demonstrate that you "don't know what you don't
> > > know".
> >
> > are you another sponsored by some "recovery tool" commercial
> > producer?
> 
> What I am is an information systems professional with 45 years
> experience. including 30 years with Unix, who does not suffer
> ignorant, ill-informed, and arrogant, fools gladly.
> 
> You make pronouncements of your *opinions* as though they are
> God-given fact -- even on things which you _don't_ have actual
> knowledge.  You're entitled to have opinions, *BUT* the "Gospel
> According to Wojciech" is -not- 'the answer' for everybody, in every
> situation. *IF* you ever learn that, realize that there _are_ other
> =legitimate= viewpoints on matters, and qualify your statements with
> things like 'in my opinion', 'this might help', 'have you considered
> trying' -- as opposed to dictating what the reader must do,
> *especially* when you have missed critical facts in the question you
> are responding to -- Then, and *ONLY*THEN*, are people likely to give
> your opinions about how to do things any serious consideration.
> 
> Case in point, your "I would bet otherwise" -- an implicit admission
> you *don't* know how SpinRite actually works.  How much hard cash, US
> dollars, do you have to 'put your money where your mouth is"?
> Alternatively, you can admit you were blowing bullshit -- that your
> words were merely uninformed speculation, with no actual basis in
> fact.
> 
> As for my subject-expertise -- I have, personally, _written_
> stand-alone code that directly interfaces with hard-controller disk
> chips -- for purposes of evaluating the condition of damaged
> hard-disks.  I've had clients come to me for advice on data-recovery,
> having suffered catastrophic damage to their only copy of what was
> truly 'mission critical' data. (No, they weren't existing clients --
> if they had been, proper back-up procedures would have been in place,
> and the disk crash would have been a 'non-event'.)
> 
> I have successfully recovered _every_byte_ of data from a damaged
> "State of The Art Compression" compressed disk volume, using custom
> device-driver code that I wrote.
> 
> I've had clients that decided it WAS 'worth it' to pay one of the
> 'kilobuck per megabyte of recovered data' (actual price) "Class 25
> clean room" recovery services -- where the damage to the drive was
> such that *ANY* attempt to access anything on the drive would cause
> more damage.  Using "'simple, free tools", like your 'dd'
> recommendation,  would (a) not have been successful, and (b)
> *greatly* reduced what would be recoverable by the clean-room
> facility.
> 
> Your assertation that "free tools are always better" is pure,
> unadulterated bullshit.  For 'simple' situations, they _may_ be
> adequate, or may not.
> 
> When there are various kinds of _serious_ problems, even -attempting-
> to use tools like 'dd' (or SpinRite, for that matter) can/will make
> things FAR worse.  Drive disassembly and platter cleaning _must_ be
> the first t hing done in such situations.
> 
> _For_the_price_, SpinRite provides an amazing level of functionality.
> circa 85-90% of what high-end professional tools costing 100x more
> can do.  It's not a FUS, but it is incredible 'bang for the buck',
> and does things that *NO* Unix 'userland' application can do in
> reconstructing damaged data. SpinRite _will_ recover data in a lot of
> situations where the 'dd' approach is "less than effective".
> Situations where SpinRite is ineffective, _and_ the "clean room"
> approach is _not_ required, are rare.  It's not perfect, it won't fix
> "everything", but it is an incredibly inexpensive step up (and a
> *LARGE* step up) from the 'dd' approach.  If the 'dd' type approach
> you you recover 'what you need' that's great.  If _not_, SpinRite
> should probably be the 'next step'.  If it _doesn't_ work, the
> cost/time for trying it is 'inconsequential petty cash', elative to
> the cost of the _next_ approach.  And, if it -does- work, it paid for
> itself, a hundred times over, by saving the cost of the really
> expensive approach.  "Cheap insurance' even at several times the
> retail price.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Wojciech lives in his own little
world, which is fine as long as he doesn't try to visit mine. He sounds
like he works at a small Polish SMB, more commonly referred to as a
SOHO in more developed countries. I have just blocked him so I don't
have to read his TROLLish bullshit. The fact that he mentioned
"scandisk" which Microsoft only released in Microsoft Windows
Millennium Edition, Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition and Microsoft
Windows 98 Second Edition makes one wonder just how current he is with
modern operating systems and 

Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Tue Jul 17 12:06:29 2012
> Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2012 19:02:19 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Wojciech Puchar 
> To: Robert Bonomi 
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> >>
> >>
> >>> Surely SpinRite is "more clever" than that,
> >> i would bet otherwise. simple tools and free tools are always better
> >
> > You continue to demonstrate that you "don't know what you don't know".
>
> are you another sponsored by some "recovery tool" commercial producer?

What I am is an information systems professional with 45 years experience.
including 30 years with Unix, who does not suffer ignorant, ill-informed,
and arrogant, fools gladly.

You make pronouncements of your *opinions* as though they are God-given 
fact -- even on things which you _don't_ have actual knowledge.  You're 
entitled to have opinions, *BUT* the "Gospel According to Wojciech" is -not- 
'the answer' for everybody, in every situation. *IF* you ever learn that, 
realize that there _are_ other =legitimate= viewpoints on matters, and
qualify your statements with things like 'in my opinion', 'this might
help', 'have you considered trying' -- as opposed to dictating what the
reader must do, *especially* when you have missed critical facts in
the question you are responding to -- Then, and *ONLY*THEN*, are people 
likely to give your opinions about how to do things any serious consideration.

Case in point, your "I would bet otherwise" -- an implicit admission you
*don't* know how SpinRite actually works.  How much hard cash, US dollars,
do you have to 'put your money where your mouth is"?   Alternatively, you
can admit you were blowing bullshit -- that your words were merely
uninformed speculation, with no actual basis in fact.


As for my subject-expertise -- I have, personally, _written_ stand-alone code
that directly interfaces with hard-controller disk chips -- for purposes of 
evaluating the condition of damaged hard-disks.  I've had clients come to 
me for advice on data-recovery, having suffered catastrophic damage to their 
only copy of what was truly 'mission critical' data. (No, they weren't
existing clients -- if they had been, proper back-up procedures would have
been in place, and the disk crash would have been a 'non-event'.)

I have successfully recovered _every_byte_ of data from a damaged "State of 
The Art Compression" compressed disk volume, using custom device-driver code
that I wrote.

I've had clients that decided it WAS 'worth it' to pay one of the 'kilobuck
per megabyte of recovered data' (actual price) "Class 25 clean room" recovery
services -- where the damage to the drive was such that *ANY* attempt to
access anything on the drive would cause more damage.  Using "'simple, free
tools", like your 'dd' recommendation,  would (a) not have been successful,
and (b) *greatly* reduced what would be recoverable by the clean-room facility.

Your assertation that "free tools are always better" is pure, unadulterated
bullshit.  For 'simple' situations, they _may_ be adequate, or may not.

When there are various kinds of _serious_ problems, even -attempting- to 
use tools like 'dd' (or SpinRite, for that matter) can/will make things 
FAR worse.  Drive disassembly and platter cleaning _must_ be the first t
hing done in such situations.

_For_the_price_, SpinRite provides an amazing level of functionality. circa 
85-90% of what high-end professional tools costing 100x more can do.  It's 
not a FUS, but it is incredible 'bang for the buck', and does things that
*NO* Unix 'userland' application can do in reconstructing damaged data.
SpinRite _will_ recover data in a lot of situations where the 'dd' approach
is "less than effective".  Situations where SpinRite is ineffective, _and_
the "clean room" approach is _not_ required, are rare.  It's not perfect,
it won't fix "everything", but it is an incredibly inexpensive step up
(and a *LARGE* step up) from the 'dd' approach.  If the 'dd' type approach
you you recover 'what you need' that's great.  If _not_, SpinRite should
probably be the 'next step'.  If it _doesn't_ work, the cost/time for
trying it is 'inconsequential petty cash', elative to the cost of the _next_
approach.  And, if it -does- work, it paid for itself, a hundred times over,
by saving the cost of the really expensive approach.  "Cheap insurance'
even at several times the retail price.



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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

Surely SpinRite is "more clever" than that,

i would bet otherwise. simple tools and free tools are always better


You continue to demonsteate that you "don't know what you don't know".

are you another sponsored by some "recovery tool" commercial producer?
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Mon Jul 16 01:17:33 2012
> Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 08:15:13 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Wojciech Puchar 
> To: Polytropon 
> Cc: FreeBSD 
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> > read attempts. In worst case, there will be "gaps" in the
> > result.
>
>
> >Surely SpinRite is "more clever" than that, 
> i would bet otherwise. simple tools and free tools are always better

You continue to demonsteate that you "don't know what you don't know".


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jerry]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:36:07 +0200 (CEST)
Wojciech Puchar articulated:

> >> It appears I was mistaken.
> >
> > Care to elaborate? Most people on this list seem to speak highly of
> > SpinRite.
> 
> first - it is off topic.
> second - because all commercial software like that are designed for 
> uneducated user, mostly try to automatically do everything. Which is
> a danger not help.

I love reading your posts first thing in the morning Wojciech. After
having read them I have assured myself that I cannot possible read
anything more asinine for the rest of the day. Your replies are as sour
as verjuice and of even less usefulness. To call you an incorrigible
malcontent would be to simply state the obvious. Your spiel is
abstruse, rarely on topic and totally self serving. You continue to
cast aspersions and heap maledictions upon any who dare to disagree
with you. Quite frankly, your postings are about as useful as "tits on
a bull". It is with great pleasure that I am creating a kill filter to
bounce anymore such mail from you that I should be so unfortunate as to
receive.

-- 
Jerry ♔

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Bas Smeelen]

On 07/17/2012 11:36 AM, Wojciech Puchar wrote:

It appears I was mistaken.


Care to elaborate? Most people on this list seem to speak highly of 
SpinRite.


first - it is off topic.
second - because all commercial software like that are designed for 
uneducated user, mostly try to automatically do everything. Which is a 
danger not help.


Hi
This is an old story.
You can look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite
and the talk page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ASpinRite

http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/steve-gibson-is-a-fraud/


I have never used this "tool" because dd has always sufficed.
Even with an almost end of hardware life (takketaketakke noise generating) 
disk I have been able to create an image (even with hitting the disk case 
because heads got stuck) and rescue data from it with plain dd. This has 
been more then 8 years ago, since then I make sure to always have multiple 
good back-ups



Disclaimer: http://www.ose.nl/email

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

It appears I was mistaken.


Care to elaborate? Most people on this list seem to speak highly of SpinRite.


first - it is off topic.
second - because all commercial software like that are designed for 
uneducated user, mostly try to automatically do everything. Which is a 
danger not help.


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

SpinWrong is a scam, Gibson is a fraud, and this conversation is pure
marketing gibberish.
maybe you exaggerate but this is what i feel in that discussion. instead 
of help - seemed like marketing.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Chris Hill]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012, Adam Vande More wrote:

SpinWrong is a scam, Gibson is a fraud, and this conversation is pure 
marketing gibberish. I thought most had overcome this credulity years 
ago. It appears I was mistaken.


Care to elaborate? Most people on this list seem to speak highly of 
SpinRite. I'd be interested to know if they are all deluded, because 
I've been thinking of buying it.



--
Chris Hill   ch...@monochrome.org
** [ Busy Expunging  ]
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Mon Jul 16 12:12:47 2012
> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:10:34 -0500
> From: Mark Felder 
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:04:31 -0500, Robert Bonomi  
>  wrote:
>
> > This is *precisely*  why dd is _grossly_inferior_ to professional-grade
> > tools like Spinrite.
>
> I bet you are a big fan of homeopathic treatments too, aren't you?


Homepoathic treatments are extremely effective.





  ... at demonstrating the placebo effect.   *GRIN*


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

`
> Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:03:37 -0500
> From: Adam Vande More 
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
>
> SpinWrong is a scam, Gibson is a fraud, and this conversation is pure
> marketing gibberish. I thought most had overcome this credulity years ago.
>  It appears I was mistaken.

"Everyone has the inalienable right to be wrong."

Far be it from me to attempt to impair your exercise of your rights.`



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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robison, Dave]

On 07/16/2012 10:10, Mark Felder wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:04:31 -0500, Robert Bonomi
>  wrote:
>
>> This is *precisely*  why dd is _grossly_inferior_ to professional-grade
>> tools like Spinrite.
>
> I bet you are a big fan of homeopathic treatments too, aren't you?
> ___
>

Nice ad hominem there. Very impressive. Perhaps we can sink a bit lower
by making some random comments about people's mothers while we're at it.

I've used Spinrite a few times with good results. It does take forever
at times.

I've also used the dd trick with good results.



-- 
Dave Robison
Sales Solution Architect II
FIS Banking Solutions
510/621-2089 (w)
530/518-5194 (c)
510/621-2020 (f)
da...@vicor.com
david.robi...@fisglobal.com

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Mark Felder]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:04:31 -0500, Robert Bonomi  
 wrote:



This is *precisely*  why dd is _grossly_inferior_ to professional-grade
tools like Spinrite.


I bet you are a big fan of homeopathic treatments too, aren't you?
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Adam Vande More]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Jerry  wrote:
>
> >
> > This is *precisely*  why dd is _grossly_inferior_ to
> > professional-grade tools like Spinrite.
> >
> > With the settings the resident "infallible expert on everything"
> > <*SNORT*> recommends, dd will make _one_ attempt to read each disk
> > sector, going through the O/S's device driver code, and write out
> > 'whatever it got', regardless of whether or not ane sort of
> > read-error was signalled.  This results in GUARANNTEED,
> > *UNRECOVERABLE*, GARBAGE in the copy, _every_ place where a read
> > error was encountered.  This result can be marginally acceptable --
> > for 'first-cut' attempts at accessing 'easily recoverable' data on
> > the disk.
> >
> > 'dd' is purely 'amateurville', however, when it comes to recovering
> > =critical= data inside an 'unreadable' (by the O/S) disk block.
> >
> >
> > Spinrite, and other professional-grade tools, run absolutely
> > stand-alone, without the use of _any_ O/S drivers, or even BIOS
> > code.  Spinrite _directly_ programs the hard-disk-controller chip,
> > can retrieve into memory _every_ bit -- including address-marks,
> > sector framing, recorded ECC bits, and so on -- on a track, for
> > analysis, can seek from an inner track, read the bits, then seek from
> > an _outer_ track, and do another read. It can also do things like
> > step the heads 'fractionally' off the track center, and read
> > _there_.  By doing these kinds of *very*low*level* operations, that
> > are forbidden to any 'userland' task, by an O/S, tools like Spinrite
> > can do a FAR BETTER job of extracting data from damaged disks.
> >
> > Professional-grade tools can also do things like 'pre-initialize' the
> > I/O buffer _in_the_disk_itself_, with _different_ bit patterns on
> > multiple read passes,  They can thus find bitstrings that are (a) the
> > 'prior data' in th buffer, (b) bits that are read consistently from
> > the disk, and (c) bits that 'change value' from one read attempt to
> > the next.  This allows such tools to do a much better job of
> > RECONSTRUCTING the actual data in the 'error' sector(s).
> >
> >
> > "Make a copy, and work only on the copy" _is_ good advice for
> > attempting 'simple' data recovery with tools that run in 'userland',
> > under an O/S. When the 'simple' approach fails, or is insufficient,
> > it is time to bring out the "big guns" -- things like Spinrite --
> > which -require- direct accesss to the original damaged disk. Since
> > Spinrite, and similar tools, operate READ-ONLY on the disk -- which
> > is *not* guaranteed if there is a general-purpose O/S in the wa -- it
> > _is_ generally safe to let them access the damaged original.  The
> > problematic situation is where spinning up the drive causes -more-
> > damage to the media..
>
> +1
>
> I use to keep SpinRite on a flash drive that I could easily carry with
> me if needed. Of course that would require the machine to be worked on
> to have the ability to boot from a flash drive. Unfortunately, not all
> of them could. Fortunately, I almost never need an industrial strength
> recovery product like SpinRite. It is nice to know it is available if I
> do though.


SpinWrong is a scam, Gibson is a fraud, and this conversation is pure
marketing gibberish. I thought most had overcome this credulity years ago.
 It appears I was mistaken.


-- 
Adam Vande More
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jerry]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:04:31 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

> > From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Sun Jul 15 16:31:45 2012
> > Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2012 23:29:39 +0200 (CEST)
> > From: Wojciech Puchar 
> > To: FreeBSD 
> > Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
> >
> > > totally in error. SpinRite will attempt to read a damage sector
> > > up to 2000 times and through different algorithms determine what
> > > is most
> >
> > man dd
> >
> > conv=sync,noerror
> 
> This is *precisely*  why dd is _grossly_inferior_ to
> professional-grade tools like Spinrite.
> 
> With the settings the resident "infallible expert on everything"
> <*SNORT*> recommends, dd will make _one_ attempt to read each disk
> sector, going through the O/S's device driver code, and write out
> 'whatever it got', regardless of whether or not ane sort of
> read-error was signalled.  This results in GUARANNTEED,
> *UNRECOVERABLE*, GARBAGE in the copy, _every_ place where a read
> error was encountered.  This result can be marginally acceptable --
> for 'first-cut' attempts at accessing 'easily recoverable' data on
> the disk.
> 
> 'dd' is purely 'amateurville', however, when it comes to recovering
> =critical= data inside an 'unreadable' (by the O/S) disk block.
> 
> 
> Spinrite, and other professional-grade tools, run absolutely
> stand-alone, without the use of _any_ O/S drivers, or even BIOS
> code.  Spinrite _directly_ programs the hard-disk-controller chip,
> can retrieve into memory _every_ bit -- including address-marks,
> sector framing, recorded ECC bits, and so on -- on a track, for
> analysis, can seek from an inner track, read the bits, then seek from
> an _outer_ track, and do another read. It can also do things like
> step the heads 'fractionally' off the track center, and read
> _there_.  By doing these kinds of *very*low*level* operations, that
> are forbidden to any 'userland' task, by an O/S, tools like Spinrite
> can do a FAR BETTER job of extracting data from damaged disks.
> 
> Professional-grade tools can also do things like 'pre-initialize' the
> I/O buffer _in_the_disk_itself_, with _different_ bit patterns on
> multiple read passes,  They can thus find bitstrings that are (a) the
> 'prior data' in th buffer, (b) bits that are read consistently from
> the disk, and (c) bits that 'change value' from one read attempt to
> the next.  This allows such tools to do a much better job of
> RECONSTRUCTING the actual data in the 'error' sector(s).
> 
> 
> "Make a copy, and work only on the copy" _is_ good advice for
> attempting 'simple' data recovery with tools that run in 'userland',
> under an O/S. When the 'simple' approach fails, or is insufficient,
> it is time to bring out the "big guns" -- things like Spinrite --
> which -require- direct accesss to the original damaged disk. Since
> Spinrite, and similar tools, operate READ-ONLY on the disk -- which
> is *not* guaranteed if there is a general-purpose O/S in the wa -- it
> _is_ generally safe to let them access the damaged original.  The
> problematic situation is where spinning up the drive causes -more-
> damage to the media..

+1

I use to keep SpinRite on a flash drive that I could easily carry with
me if needed. Of course that would require the machine to be worked on
to have the ability to boot from a flash drive. Unfortunately, not all
of them could. Fortunately, I almost never need an industrial strength
recovery product like SpinRite. It is nice to know it is available if I
do though.

-- 
Jerry ♔

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Robert Bonomi]

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Sun Jul 15 16:31:45 2012
> Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2012 23:29:39 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Wojciech Puchar 
> To: FreeBSD 
> Subject: Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?
>
> > totally in error. SpinRite will attempt to read a damage sector up to
> > 2000 times and through different algorithms determine what is most
>
> man dd
>
> conv=sync,noerror

This is *precisely*  why dd is _grossly_inferior_ to professional-grade 
tools like Spinrite.

With the settings the resident "infallible expert on everything" <*SNORT*> 
recommends, dd will make _one_ attempt to read each disk sector, going 
through the O/S's device driver code, and write out 'whatever it got', 
regardless of whether or not ane sort of read-error was signalled.  This 
results in GUARANNTEED, *UNRECOVERABLE*, GARBAGE in the copy, _every_ 
place where a read error was encountered.  This result can be marginally
acceptable -- for 'first-cut' attempts at accessing 'easily recoverable'
data on the disk.

'dd' is purely 'amateurville', however, when it comes to recovering =critical=
data inside an 'unreadable' (by the O/S) disk block.


Spinrite, and other professional-grade tools, run absolutely stand-alone,
without the use of _any_ O/S drivers, or even BIOS code.  Spinrite
_directly_ programs the hard-disk-controller chip, can retrieve into 
memory _every_ bit -- including address-marks, sector framing, recorded 
ECC bits, and so on -- on a track, for analysis, can seek from an inner 
track, read the bits, then seek from an _outer_ track, and do another read.
It can also do things like step the heads 'fractionally' off the track 
center, and read _there_.  By doing these kinds of *very*low*level* 
operations, that are forbidden to any 'userland' task, by an O/S, tools
like Spinrite can do a FAR BETTER job of extracting data from damaged
disks.

Professional-grade tools can also do things like 'pre-initialize' the I/O
buffer _in_the_disk_itself_, with _different_ bit patterns on multiple
read passes,  They can thus find bitstrings that are (a) the 'prior data'
in th buffer, (b) bits that are read consistently from the disk, and
(c) bits that 'change value' from one read attempt to the next.  This 
allows such tools to do a much better job of RECONSTRUCTING the actual
data in the 'error' sector(s).


"Make a copy, and work only on the copy" _is_ good advice for attempting
'simple' data recovery with tools that run in 'userland', under an O/S. 
When the 'simple' approach fails, or is insufficient, it is time to
bring out the "big guns" -- things like Spinrite -- which -require-
direct accesss to the original damaged disk. Since Spinrite, and similar
tools, operate READ-ONLY on the disk -- which is *not* guaranteed if 
there is a general-purpose O/S in the wa -- it _is_ generally safe to let
them access the damaged original.  The problematic situation is where
spinning up the drive causes -more- damage to the media..


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Adam Vande More wrote:


On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 4:29 PM, Wojciech Puchar <
woj...@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> wrote:


totally in error. SpinRite will attempt to read a damage sector up to

2000 times and through different algorithms determine what is most



man dd



Even better,

recoverdisk /dev/da0 /dev/da1

true :)
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

read attempts. In worst case, there will be "gaps" in the
result.



Surely SpinRite is "more clever" than that, 

i would bet otherwise. simple tools and free tools are always better
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Polytropon]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 23:29:39 +0200 (CEST), Wojciech Puchar wrote:
> > totally in error. SpinRite will attempt to read a damage sector up to
> > 2000 times and through different algorithms determine what is most
> 
> man dd
> 
> conv=sync,noerror

Even though it doesn't use different algorithms, programs
like dd_rescue and ddrescue can also change the block size
upon encountering read errors, and apply several cycles of
read attempts. In worst case, there will be "gaps" in the
result. Surely SpinRite is "more clever" than that, using
some means to "extrapolate" the missing data.

http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/

http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Adam Vande More]

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 4:29 PM, Wojciech Puchar <
woj...@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> wrote:

> totally in error. SpinRite will attempt to read a damage sector up to
>> 2000 times and through different algorithms determine what is most
>>
>
> man dd
>

Even better,

recoverdisk /dev/da0 /dev/da1



-- 
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

totally in error. SpinRite will attempt to read a damage sector up to
2000 times and through different algorithms determine what is most


man dd

conv=sync,noerror
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jerry]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 21:48:23 +0200
Polytropon articulated:

> For example, make an 1:1 copy using dd (or ddrescue or dd_rescue)
> of the disk. Work with a copy of that copy. Do not alter the disk.
> Then use tools that do the job of recovery (see my list postings
> about that topic, they contain a good list of tools you can use
> on UNIX). The suggestion of SpinRite is also good, even though
> the program is expensive. I'm confident it's worth its money.
> But if you are willing to _learn_ (which means to read and to
> experiment), the free recovery tools available through the
> Ports Collection are really good.

If I might interject here, making a copy is obviously imperative;
however, it also exposes a severe problem. You are working under the
assumption that the copy is actually correct.In fact, it is simply what
is being read from the disk at the time of the copy. It may in fact be
totally in error. SpinRite will attempt to read a damage sector up to
2000 times and through different algorithms determine what is most
likely the correct data. Obviously it cannot do that if it is working
with a copy of the drive. It must have access to the original drive. I
have to admit that am partial to SpinRite since it saved my ass twice
in the past 10 years when no other software could do the job 100%.
Hence, if you cannot afford to lose your data, back it up.

-- 
Jerry ♔

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Polytropon]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:51:57 -0700, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
> 
> In message 
> 
> , Adam Vande More  wrote:
> 
> >On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 2:23 AM, Ronald F. Guilmette
> >wrote:
> >>
> >> Is there any such a tool (as fsck for FAT32) available for freeBSD?  If so,
> >> where would I find it?
> >>
> >
> >/sbin/fsck_msdosfs
> 
> 
> Thank you.  That sure sounds like it ought to do the trick.

It will do its job: Check the file system's integrity.

>From that point, you will either have the answer that everything
is okay, or you have to go into the direction of recovery. In
that case, different tools need to be used.

For example, make an 1:1 copy using dd (or ddrescue or dd_rescue)
of the disk. Work with a copy of that copy. Do not alter the disk.
Then use tools that do the job of recovery (see my list postings
about that topic, they contain a good list of tools you can use
on UNIX). The suggestion of SpinRite is also good, even though
the program is expensive. I'm confident it's worth its money.
But if you are willing to _learn_ (which means to read and to
experiment), the free recovery tools available through the
Ports Collection are really good.

Example: I had to recover data from a USB stick that "Windows"
had "repaired", so no files could be read anymore. Getting a
copy of the stick required a long time (because it was already
damaged), but with the help of the free programs, I could recover
_all_ files from the stick, and hand them over to a happy customer.

But as I said, it may be possible that you don't have to walk
the rugged streets of data recovery. :-)

Suggestion: First use fsck_msdosfs without any parameters so
it will ONLY CHECK the disk without altering anything (also
see "man fsck" for -n, -v and maybe -d).

Addendum:

For dealing with non-standard file systems (such as FAT/msdosfs),
the use of the _native tools_ seems to be the best solution in
most times. In exceptions, it makes things worse. Still in most
situations it just does the right thing.


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jerry]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 20:43:57 +0200 (CEST)
Wojciech Puchar articulated:

> On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Bruce Cran wrote:
> 
> > On 15/07/2012 09:56, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
> >> but, in spite of some fanatics here my get worried, i do recommend
> >> use windoze scandisk.
> >
> > I'd forgotten about scandisk - for modern Windows (XP and newer)
> > you'll want to use chkdsk ( e.g. 'chkdsk /F C:' ).
 ^
 [VOLUME[PATH]FILENAME]] /F
Use the [/R] option to recover data {implies /F}

In any case, SpinRite is a much better option.

> both do the same

No they don't.

1) Unlike CHKDSK, ScanDisk would also repair cross linked files.

2) ScanDisk cannot check NTFS disk drives, and therefore it is
unavailable for computers that may be running NT based (including
Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc.) versions of Windows.

-- 
Jerry ♔

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message <5002b996.2000...@cran.org.uk>, 
Bruce Cran  wrote:

>On 15/07/2012 09:56, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
>> but, in spite of some fanatics here my get worried, i do recommend use 
>> windoze scandisk.
>
>I'd forgotten about scandisk - for modern Windows (XP and newer) you'll 
>want to use chkdsk ( e.g. 'chkdsk /F C:' ).


Thank you.  I had considered maybe using scandisk/chkdsk, but I loath
turning on my one and only Windoze system unless I have to.  (Mostly
I keep it turned off so that its inherently evil aura will not accidently
leak out and perhaps contaminate any of my other equipment.)

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

In message 
, Adam Vande More  wrote:

>On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 2:23 AM, Ronald F. Guilmette
>wrote:
>>
>> Is there any such a tool (as fsck for FAT32) available for freeBSD?  If so,
>> where would I find it?
>>
>
>/sbin/fsck_msdosfs


Thank you.  That sure sounds like it ought to do the trick.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Bruce Cran]

On 15/07/2012 19:43, Wojciech Puchar wrote:


both do the same


'scandisk' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

--
Bruce Cran
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

If you absolutely, positively have to recover the drive, I would
recommend SpinRite 6 . Its not free;


again i would recommend standard windows scandisk. such tools as "the 
other" utilities are usually not better.


make sure you have full disk backup anyway
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012, Bruce Cran wrote:


On 15/07/2012 09:56, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
but, in spite of some fanatics here my get worried, i do recommend use 
windoze scandisk.


I'd forgotten about scandisk - for modern Windows (XP and newer) you'll want 
to use chkdsk ( e.g. 'chkdsk /F C:' ).



both do the same



--
Bruce Cran


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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[John Levine]

>Is there any such a tool (as fsck for FAT32) available for freeBSD?  If so,
>where would I find it?

There's fsck_msdosfs, part of the base system.  Regular fsck should
call it automatically if you run it on a FAT filesystem.

R's,
John
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Bruce Cran]

On 15/07/2012 09:56, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
but, in spite of some fanatics here my get worried, i do recommend use 
windoze scandisk.


I'd forgotten about scandisk - for modern Windows (XP and newer) you'll 
want to use chkdsk ( e.g. 'chkdsk /F C:' ).


--
Bruce Cran
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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Jerry]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 10:56:22 +0200 (CEST)
Wojciech Puchar articulated:

> > Is there any such a tool (as fsck for FAT32) available for
> > freeBSD?  If so, where would I find it?
> 
> fsck_msdosfs
> 
> but, in spite of some fanatics here my get worried, i do recommend
> use Window's Scandisk.

If you absolutely, positively have to recover the drive, I would
recommend SpinRite 6 . Its not free;
however, I have witnessed it recovering drives that other utilities gave
up on. The only problem is that if you use another utility first it may
mangle up the drive so bad that SpinRite cannot correct it. Its not
quick either. I have seen it take an entire week to rebuild an 80 GB
drive, but it DID actually recover all of the data.

The choice is yours; however, running SpinRite at its maximum strength
-- 5 -- is about as good as it gets unless you want to try a commercial
outlet.

-- 
Jerry ♔

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Wojciech Puchar]

Is there any such a tool (as fsck for FAT32) available for freeBSD?  If so,
where would I find it?


fsck_msdosfs

but, in spite of some fanatics here my get worried, i do recommend use 
windoze scandisk.


When recovering data from FAT32 i've proven myself what is actually a 
better tool.


unless your disk is badly corrupted fsck_msdosfs would be fine too.

but gets funny crashes when there are thousands of losts files.

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Re: fsck on FAT32 filesystem?

[Adam Vande More]

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 2:23 AM, Ronald F. Guilmette
wrote:
>
> Is there any such a tool (as fsck for FAT32) available for freeBSD?  If so,
> where would I find it?
>

/sbin/fsck_msdosfs

-- 
Adam Vande More
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