Added a second disk, problems arise.

[glennzo]

Hello. I've just added a second disk to one of my computers. It is a 500GB SATA. It is the second drive according to the BIOS. Fedora calls it /dev/sdb. So far so good. This box is running Fedora 13 final. Never any problems until the addition of the new disk. Palimpsest says that this disk has a LOT of bad sectors. This disk is a storage drive. I want to address the problem but don't know what to do first. My thought is to rsync all the data to my external 250GB disk bedore I do anything else but I'm mot sure if I should just yet. Maybe I should run some diagnostics on the drive? If so, what? How about the tools Disk Utility offers? Should I use the Smart Utilities? What other Linux tools are available and are they reliable? Maybe I should install XP on the main disk and use Windows' disk tools? If I should lose all data it wouldn't be the end of the world but I'm not sure how "in sync" the 2 storage drives actually are. Any and all thoughts and advice gratefully accepted.

Edit: Forgot to add the screenshot!

[Dies]

You need to replace it. No sense playing around with diagnostic utilities at this point. If you want the data that's on it, grab it while you still can.

[JEO]

I see 56 bad sectors? That's not a lot for a 500GB drive. Sectors are small. If the number isn't increasing over time I wouldn't worry about it. Palimpsest is annoying. I usually disable it.

[BugRocks1]

It may not be bad sectors at all.

I had a drive showing up bad sectors and all, once you formatted it looked good but at reboot it couldn't mount it, but the drive was good, proof of that is that in F13 it is working again and it shows no bad sectors and no problems.

Image the disk or save the data you want somewhere and try formatting it if it is ok then that probably is a bug in some core system, your drive is ok the OS is not. I don't know what it was but it got corrected for me in Fedora 13, there is a bug report somewhere I just don't have the link anymore.

---------- Post added at 10:36 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 PM CDT ----------

ps: If the problem is a bug it is a low level one well into the kernel realm and magic fairies LoL

Meaning that you need to capture all comunication between your driver and the OS driver and start tracing it, not fun when you are not familiar with all those standards.

One thing I remembered SATA conectors are not shielded so they can interfere with each other you could try connecting only that drive and see if it works.

Good reading specially the part "What not to do with a SATA drive"(or something to that effect)
http://www.ata-atapi.com/sata.html

The SATA specification has to be purchased so that will be a problem
http://www.serialata.org/developers/...al_library.asp

If I think of anything else I will post that.

---------- Post added at 10:46 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 PM CDT ----------

By the way the SMART data is not reliable, do not take those warnings as the holy gospel they are not, they are more like a compass that point you in one direction but can't tell you where you are exactly.

---------- Post added at 11:00 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM CDT ----------

If it is the hardware you probably will hear some loud clicks coming from it that is hardware failing.

If the drive is making strange rattling or clicking noises, turn off the computer immediately.

If the diagnostic tool doesn't make the drive make sounds is probably software but don't take my word for it.
http://www.wikihow.com/Diagnose-a-Co...ard-Disk-Drive.

Testing that I thought of now:

- Take the drive and test it on another computer.
- Test it with another cable.
- Test other connector on the board.
- Try an enclosure.
- Try a non linux OS.

If it works on another computer or other OS the you can rule out hardware failure and start bugging the developers on bugzilla

[hmmsjan]

Dear Glennzo,

As far I know, every new disk should have this value on zero. You are looking into data collected
by the disk firmware.
So if this disk is new, I would suggest to download a standalone test utility from the manufacturer's site and if this amount of bad sectors is confirmed, try to claim warranty.
If it is not a new disk, keep a close look to this value and if it increases, consider the disk as
unreliable and replace it. Having backed up your important data already before of course....


Good luck and kind regards,

[glennzo]

The data has been backed up, after starting this thread. Wonder if Western Digital (figures) has Linux tools.

By the way, this disk was fine in the computer that it came out of, a Fedora 12 system.

[leigh123linux]

Palimpsest is a ******* liar, I wouldn't take any notice of the crap it spews out.

[hmmsjan]

Dear Glennzo,

Originally Posted by glennzo

The data has been backed up, after starting this thread. Wonder if Western Digital (figures) has Linux tools.

By the way, this disk was fine in the computer that it came out of, a Fedora 12 system.

Where these smart attributes monitored in the Fedora 12 system?

Western Digital has tools which start from a CD ISO image, so OS independent.
I have two WD SATA drives in my system, the display in Palimpsest is what I expect.

Good luck,

[errorxp]

If you have Windows installed you could run "chkdsk /F" and see what happens. I had previously some problems with F13 crashing all the time, so I couldn't delete some files on my ext WD hdd. I think it was free space marked as cache or something. Anyway this sorted it out for me.

If it is the hardware you probably will hear some loud clicks coming from it that is hardware failing.

My 160GB Hitachi Sata drive has been "clicking" from day one and still running

[glennzo]

Originally Posted by leigh123linux

Palimpsest is a ******* liar, I wouldn't take any notice of the crap it spews out.

Truth be told, I'm with you Leigh. I believe I've posted previously (in other threads) about my distaste for Palimpsest.

[glennzo]

Originally Posted by hmmsjan

Where these smart attributes monitored in the Fedora 12 system?

No, the disk was fine in the Fedora 12 system.