Arch Linux

whol

Member

Registered: 2004-02-04

Posts: 155

My dying Arch box. Severe HD problems.

I'm running Arch 0.6 with the 2.6.4 kernel on an Athlon XP 2100, and I keep losing access to my HD's.  I hear a "click" and then all open terminals lock up.  I tried both ext3 and reiserfs on my / drive.  It happens to my 120GB /dev/hda, my 160GB /dev/hdb, and my 200GB /dev/hdd.  It just locked up again, one of the messages was "reiserfs panic".

I have another machine thats a Pentium 4, it has an 80GB /dev/hda, 160GB /dev/hdb, and a 160GB /dev/hdd/.  This machine has no problems, and is configured almost identically to the first machine.

I'm thinking of trying the 2.4 kernel next, but I would hate to get stuck on an old kernel because of some mysterious problem.  I don't know how to get a printout of the errors, since it always locks up the machine when it croaks. 

Any ideas what do about this?  The machine ran Windows XP Pro for a year with no problems.  I downloaded the Maxtor diagnostic disk, and ran a Full Test surface-analysis on all 3 drives - and they all passed with no errors.

thx.

Xentac

Forum Fellow

From: Victoria, BC

Registered: 2003-01-17

Posts: 1,797

Website

Re: My dying Arch box. Severe HD problems.

Try disabling acpi and/or apci.  "acpi=off" and "noapic", IIRC.

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I have discovered that all of mans unhappiness derives from only one source, not being able to sit quietly in a room
- Blaise Pascal

whol

Member

Registered: 2004-02-04

Posts: 155

Re: My dying Arch box. Severe HD problems.

I tried installing both SUSE and Redhat FC2, they both had a problem with the HD too.  So its not Arch.  I then went back and ran more thorough tests, which the HD *failed* on the first run.

I ran the "Burn In" test, which is more thorough than the "Full Scan".  It failed, and spit out a Diagnostic Code (which I was unable to find on Maxtor's website).

I then did a "Full Low Level Format", which zero-ed out the entire drive.  I was hoping that would fix the error, but I don't know if it really fixes things (or even if the problem is fixable).

I ran another "Burn In" test, which it passed.  It is currently running 10 sequential "Full Scans", which I assume it will pass.

Maybe the "Low Level Format" fixed it.  If I have any more problems, I'll replace the drive.  The drive is a 120GB Maxtor, about a year old, I hate to have to replace it so soon.  It has gotten a lot of use, however.

thx

mavric

Member

From: B.C. Canada

Registered: 2004-01-03

Posts: 24

Re: My dying Arch box. Severe HD problems.

The "click" happens to my laptop when I shutdown. It sounds like the hard drive head is not locking properly (EDIT- problem fixed now)

whol

Member

Registered: 2004-02-04

Posts: 155

Re: My dying Arch box. Severe HD problems.

My 120GB boot drive is semi-dead, and my PC wont boot any OS off my 160's or 200's (unless they are formatted at 130GB). I got it to boot off an old 80GB, so now I'm back in business.  I still don't fully understand what happened.

The 120Gb can be formatted with any OS, but the PC will not boot from it (any more).  It even (now) passes all the Maxtor diagnostic tests.  My only guess it that the part of the drive that deals with the initial load, is damaged.  I'll try to use it as a data drive before I toss it.

thx

Mr Green

Forum Fellow

From: U.K.

Registered: 2003-12-21

Posts: 5,896

Website

Re: My dying Arch box. Severe HD problems.

Have you checked lilo/grub config?

If you can chroot in then what does dmesg tell you ?

Mr Green

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Mr Green