Re: Linux crashing often
Alex Goldman wrote:
> My Debian Sarge system crashes like daily (the last few days). The way
> it crashes is always the same: it feels as if the HD becoms
> inaccessible (I can switch between windows, but any command just
> hangs)
Sounds like a drive problem, it should show up in the output of dmesg.
Run "smartctl -HA /dev/hda" and examine the results, assuming you've
already installed smartmontools and have SMART available and enabled,
and it has already run its tests.
> 1. ran memtest86 for 15 minutes, it found no errors (I think the whole
> test suite may take hours)
Memtest should run from a lilo boot entry for hours/days. Your computer
will be unusable for the duration.
> 2. ran dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/null, which finished without errors
It could silently stumble and move on. IDE drives aren't supposed to
announce bad sector remapping, that's what SMART is for.
> 3. tried to run fsck on /home, but it doesn't do anything useful, just
> returns immediately, saying the file system (ext3) is "clean"
Of course. Read the manpage quick, before you ruin something. :-)
> 4. tried to remount / read-only to run fsck on it too, but "/ is
> busy", and even then it's also ext3, so fsck probably wouldn't be
> useful
Better read the manpage for tune2fs while you're at it. The short answer
to both questions is to set the mount count beyond the max and reboot:
tune2fs -C 100 /dev/hda1
You can also use "single user mode" at boot time, or boot from a
utility CD, and in either case --force a fsck. Tune2fs is easier.
> Any ideas? This is a relatively new machine, and I ran the
> unmentionable OS on it for months without any problems.
There is so much wrong with that statement, but maybe I can sum
it up by saying that Windows probably uses the memory and hard drive
differently. Most likely the problem wouldn't surface until you were
working it hard, then you'd shrug it off as "windows" and reboot.
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