Is this a hardware issue?

dozerismydogsname · 2011-01-21 02:41:56

My laptop was working fine this morning, i was able to complete my work both in arch and in windows (i dualboot). I haven't slammed by laptop on anything, and i know for a fact that everytime i closed it; i closed it correctly on windows and arch.

Now whenever i attempt to boot arch i'm getting the following error:

ata1.00: status: {DRDY ERR}
ata1.00: error: {UNC}
ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x1 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
ata1.00: irq_stat 0x40000008

Then a bunch of "Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block x"; with x being various numbers. My windows partition and fallback partition aren't working either. Like the thread title says, is this a problem caused by my hardware; if so is there any fix for it?

Coacher · 2011-01-21 02:52:03

Yeah, its 99% hardware problem.

To be more specific it is your hard drive problem. It has some sectors with uncorrectable errors(UNC) you can try to remap them using MHDD or Victoria(both running from DOS from some media) or utility from manufacturer in order to save the most of the data, if you dont have too many.
But you should definitely start with utilty from your hard drive manufacturer. Just go to website and download some fitness test utility. It will give you more info and probably even fix the issue. If there is no such utility you can try badblocks form e2fsprogs package.

Last edited by Coacher (2011-01-21 02:52:38)

dozerismydogsname · 2011-01-21 03:56:26

Coacher wrote:

Yeah, its 99% hardware problem.
To be more specific it is your hard drive problem. It has some sectors with uncorrectable errors(UNC) you can try to remap them using MHDD or Victoria(both running from DOS from some media) or utility from manufacturer in order to save the most of the data, if you dont have too many.
But you should definitely start with utilty from your hard drive manufacturer. Just go to website and download some fitness test utility. It will give you more info and probably even fix the issue. If there is no such utility you can try badblocks form e2fsprogs package.

Messing around with mhdd and i'll try victoria later tomorrow; other then that i'm not sure of the manufacturer of my harddrive. Would you know how to fix it with e2fsprogs?

If all else fails i suppose that i'll just get it fixed because it is under warranty.

lagagnon · 2011-01-21 05:14:31

Download and burn the UltimateBootCD and run the proper hard drive diagnostic test for whatever hard drive you have. Some of those diagnostic utilities may be able to repair damaged sectors, but most probably it will just confirm that your hard drive is failing. I would also immediately backup any important data.

Coacher · 2011-01-21 08:11:26

Not sure of the manufacturer? You dont have any specs or cant just open case and read it on your hdd?

e2fsprogs will not do any fixing. The only helpful thing it can is to create the map of bad blocks which you can pass as argument when creating filesystem in order to avoid using them. As lagagnon said UltimateBootCD is a very good choice(I use it myself) as repairing and diagnostic tool.

About warranty it depends. However AFAIK no one warranty guarantees that your data will be safe. Any utility doesnt guarantee it too. So if you believe in yourself or feeling lucky you can try fix harddrive yourself. If not maybe it's better to get hard to service.

Lets wait for OP report about MHDD scan.

JGC · 2011-01-21 08:53:04

{DRDY ERR} means a drive timeout, {UNC} means an uncorrected error. This is usually caused by bad sectors on a drive.

If you're lucky you can still read data from your disk with a livecd. The fact that windows doesn't boot either means that the disk is broken and this is not a kernel bug.

As for warranty, there's no warranty on your data from the manufacturer, and in case of laptops, usually the manufacturer of the laptop bought the disks from another vendor without warranty. If you want warranty on your disk, you'll have to obtain it from the laptop vendor. Personally I don't return laptops for harddisk errors but replace the disk itself, but that's because disks are cheap, faster than the original and repairs take ages.

dozerismydogsname · 2011-01-21 23:33:32

Coacher wrote:

Not sure of the manufacturer? You dont have any specs or cant just open case and read it on your hdd?

I'm not familiar with the bit that my laptop uses to screw my hard drive in; it looks kinda like a start bit but it isn't. Specs are probably available online but i can't find them dell website and i have no idea where the manual for my laptop is.

Coacher wrote:

e2fsprogs will not do any fixing. The only helpful thing it can is to create the map of bad blocks which you can pass as argument when creating filesystem in order to avoid using them. As lagagnon said UltimateBootCD is a very good choice(I use it myself) as repairing and diagnostic tool.

That sounds good, i suppose this is a learning lesson.

Coacher wrote:

About warranty it depends. However AFAIK no one warranty guarantees that your data will be safe. Any utility doesnt guarantee it too. So if you believe in yourself or feeling lucky you can try fix harddrive yourself. If not maybe it's better to get hard to service.

The warranty on my laptop covers the hardware covers my harddisk problem, and i think that safest bet would be to just get it replaced by them. Also mhdd couldn't fix the problem as it could barely read my hard disk. Most of the core stuff on my laptop was previously backup'd on a flash drive so i really lost nothing major.

Anyways thanks for all the help guys, i really appreciate it.

Coacher · 2011-01-22 04:18:21

dozerismydogsname wrote:

Also mhdd couldn't fix the problem as it could barely read my hard disk. Most of the core stuff on my laptop was previously backup'd on a flash drive so i really lost nothing major.

If you are still interested in trying to repair bad sectors for yourself I remeber one experience when both mhdd and victoria failed on a particular drive but ViVARD which is also on UBCD repaired everything. Its pretty straightforward utility and you can try it.

dozerismydogsname · 2011-01-23 04:49:28

Coacher wrote:

dozerismydogsname wrote:
Also mhdd couldn't fix the problem as it could barely read my hard disk. Most of the core stuff on my laptop was previously backup'd on a flash drive so i really lost nothing major.
If you are still interested in trying to repair bad sectors for yourself I remeber one experience when both mhdd and victoria failed on a particular drive but ViVARD which is also on UBCD repaired everything. Its pretty straightforward utility and you can try it.

Yea i think i'll play around with it for a while, my new hard drive arrived today and i'm in no real rush to replace it.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-01-21 02:41:56

Is this a hardware issue?

#2 2011-01-21 02:52:03

Re: Is this a hardware issue?

#3 2011-01-21 03:56:26

Re: Is this a hardware issue?

#4 2011-01-21 05:14:31

Re: Is this a hardware issue?

#5 2011-01-21 08:11:26

Re: Is this a hardware issue?

#6 2011-01-21 08:53:04

Re: Is this a hardware issue?

#7 2011-01-21 23:33:32

Re: Is this a hardware issue?

#8 2011-01-22 04:18:21

Re: Is this a hardware issue?

#9 2011-01-23 04:49:28

Re: Is this a hardware issue?

Board footer