[sf-lug] semi-OT: help with dying disk

Fri Mar 14 10:16:25 PDT 2008

On Friday 14 March 2008 08:29:19 Blake Haggerty wrote:
> I could have sworn that Kristian had brought up an article about Ubuntu
> killing hard drives on laptops awhile back but I couldn't find it in my
> emails. I did a quick google search and the problems your experiencing
> (power and HD failure) seem to be described here....
>
>
>
> http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/laptop-hardrive-killer-bug-how-
>to-discover-whether-you-are-affected/
>

> Blake Haggerty
> Permanent Placement Specialist
>

>
> Work: 415-788-8488 x6062
> Fax: 415-788-2592
>
> Email: blake.haggerty at sapphire.com
>  http://www.linkedin.com/in/blakehaggerty

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: matt.price at utoronto.ca
> To: "sf-lug at linuxmafia.com" ;
> Sent: Mar 13, 2008 07:52:04 PM
> Subject: [sf-lug] semi-OT: help with dying disk
>
> hi folks,
>
> i htink i may have asked a similar question before, since this is the
> second time in 3 months that i've had a disk drive die, and no, i
> apparently still haven't learned my lesson.
>
> the hard drive in my laptop is dying, with messages of this ilk:
>
> -----------
> root at ubuntu:~# tail /var/log/messages
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.876000] 08 21 3f e0
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.876000] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Add.
> Sense: Unrecovered read error - auto reallocate failed
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.876000] end_request: I/O error,
> dev sda, sector 136396768
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.876000] ata1: EH complete
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.876000] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda]
> 195371568 512-byte hardware sectors (100030 MB)
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.876000] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write
> Protect is off
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.880000] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write
> cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.880000] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda]
> 195371568 512-byte hardware sectors (100030 MB)
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.880000] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write
> Protect is off
> Mar 14 02:28:55 ubuntu kernel: [17232.880000] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write
> cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
> -----------
>
> i'm currently at this point:
> i've dug up an ubuntu live cd & managed to run fsck on the root
> partition on this machine. there were lots of errors but i just said
> yes to everything it wanted to do and in the end, when i mounted the
> repaired partition, there were only a couple of dozen files in the
> lost+found. so i immediately started rsyncing to my backup (too
> late!! i know)& have found that in general, i can go for about a
> gigabyte before getting these errors, at which point rsync eventually
> dies. i have this feeling (likely wrong) that it doesn't always stop
> in the same places -- that is, that it's not necessarily that the disk
> has a hole where the file's supposed to be, but that it's just tired.
> so as regards recovery, i wanted to know whether there is some kind
> of strategy for reducing the strain on the disk -- it feels to me as
> though it's slowly dying but it might last longer if i treat it gently
> (i have no idea whether this is remotely true or even possible).
>
> that's the most important question.
>
> then i have a second one, regarding a new disk. from the looks of it,
> $150 will now buy either 200 gigs of 7200 RPM 2.5" disk, or 250 gigs
> of 5400 RPM. any idea how the speed difference is likely to affect
> both speed and power consumption on my laptop? this is a dell d820
> laptop with a core duo cpu, so it's fairly quick by my standards, but
> of course i wouldn't mind it being faster; however, it's also a
> terrible power hog under linux, currently (with what i believe is a
> 5400 rpm disk) barely staying up for an hour on battery power.
>
> so i wondered, any comments on the likely speed/power tradeoff, and
> also any hints about increasing disk lifetime? this is the first
> laptop drive that's failedo n me, and i'm wondering whether it's just
> bad luck, a bad manufacturer, or possibly some defect in the way that
> disk access is managed under recent versions of ubuntu.
>
> so thanks much!!
>
> matt
Hi all,
Following the tip from the ubuntudemon.wordpress.com article I get...

root at oreo:/etc/default#  smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   058   058   000    Old_age   
Always       -       427759
<then again after waiting 60 seconds...>
root at oreo:/etc/default#  smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   058   058   000    Old_age   
Always       -       427763
root at oreo:/etc/default# 

... or 4  Load cycles/minute or 5760/day. This is on my Dell Inspiron 8100 
(1GHz, 385764 kB RAM) notebook.

5760 cycles/day is much higher than the 90 set as a rough guideline by the 
ubuntudemon author. Could that be a problem? My notebook is sluggish, 
especially in KDE, it is less sluggish in Gnome or XFCE.

I'm running Kubuntu 7.10 (dist-upgraded through the years...)
root at oreo:/etc/default# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.22-14-generic (buildd at terranova) (gcc version 4.1.3 20070929 
(prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)) #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 07:42:25 UTC 2008

Laptop mode is off as the snippet from 
root at oreo:/etc/default# vi acpi-support ...shows...

# Switch to laptop-mode on battery power - off by default as it causes odd
# hangs on some machines
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=false

Thanks for any suggestions.

-- 
Mark Weisler 
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