Re: localhost kernel: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0

[Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>]

Hi, Charles.

On Aug 29 2007, Charles Plessy wrote:
> Le Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 12:56:00PM -0300, Rogério Brito a écrit :
> > Just for curiosity, which Ubuntu CD did you use? Any gusty image? It
> > only gives me psychedelic colors when I boot boot them.
> 
> I am using Ubuntu 6.10 live for PPC. Unfortunately, the Debian-live Etch
> CD does not work (maybe because I have a G5)

Ah, 6.10. The last version that works. :-) Feisty (7.04) doesn't work
and the last time I checked with gutsy, it was so problematic that I
changed and went with MacOS X (until I can make my USB D-Link DWL-G122
work with any kind of Linux driver) and Debian (which is where I feel
"at home").

> Under Ubuntu, the problem is the same. I unfortunately can not tell if
> it already happened before because the last time I used it was to
> partition the disk in order to install Etch.

You mentioned latter that you could not use smartmontools because it was
not available: well, that's partially true---include the repositories
universe and multiverse into your sources.list and install the package
even in a live session.

I guess that the results under Linux *may* be more informative than the
ones you got under Tiger.

> Importantly, I was able to work all day with Mac OS X Tiger, without
> having drive problems. (It is installed on the same drive).

Ok.

> I tried to test the memory and found notihing. Somme applications,
> namely NeoOffice, Adium, iTerm and Camino crash a lot, and what they
> have in common is that I updated them yesterday. However, I also
> updated Thunderbird, and it does not crash.

I guess that this may mean that you installed some applications in a
defective part of the HD. Having Camino crash a lot is quite strange
indeed.

> I am really clueless about what happened. On internet, I could read
> advices about recompiling the kernel with multimode option, but even
> if I would do this on another ppc machine, how could I install it if I
> can not mount the drive rw?

The multimode option may only help with the PATA driver (it seems that
you are using SATA on your machine---is this correct?), I guess and only
if the error numbers are exactly what you are seeing (you'd have to
watch it closely).

Actually, you can force remounting the HD rw with:

	# mount -o rw,remount -n /

but you can also expect it to be remounted ro with little activity. :-(

> > > I am wondering it my hard drive is dying or if it is another
> > > hardware problem...
> > 
> > Based on this alone, I would say that your disk is dying. Quickly,
> > backup all the data on that disk and install smartmontools.
> 
> Bad luck, it is not installed on Ubuntu's live CD... I will try to use
> it from OS X, but I have some work to do as well... (It is a work
> computer)

See above.

> > Yes. I've done this a couple of times and it worked as well as a
> > userspace tool could work (i.e., don't expect miracles).
> 
> I made a miracle with an iPod and ddrescue in the past :)

Heh. Sometimes, miracles *do* happen. :-)


Hope this helps, Rogério Brito.

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{mackenzie,ime.usp}.br : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito : http://meusite.mackenzie.com.br/rbrito
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