Re: HD problems
On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Zach wrote:
Two day ago I suddenly got lots of I/O and read errors which went to
all consoles on my laptop (Latitude C600 running Debian testing
release with Linux kernel 2.6.18) followed by loud clicking noises
coming from the area where the HD is then the kernel panicked and the
screen froze and I then heard several high pitched beeps and loud
chirping noises like a cricket.
This could be a drive failing, a cable/controller problem, or a power
problem. Many drive vendors provide diagnostics (usually in the form of a
DOS boot image, so you may have to move the drive to a system that can
boot from floppy, or install a DOS partition on another machine). You can
purchase adapters to connect a laptop drive to a desktop IDE cable.
Many laptop CD-ROM drives share controllers with the hard disk, so
if you can boot a live CD that points to cable or power. Look for
S.M.A.R.T tools, which may give some basic information about the
status of a hard disk.
This is the small ATA/IDE HD that came
with the laptop (~8 years old, Hitachi Travelstar 08K0851, 20GB). I
tried rebooting and it said it could not load the root filesystem and
complained about error reading disk and input/output error and I
heard beeping noises again - 2 quick very sharp beeps ~90 seconds
after it tried loading the / filesystem. I booted into my Ubuntu Live
CD and tried mounting the disk but it gave read error. So I went to a
local computer shop and bought another HD and installed it in the
laptop; I made sure the laptop had no power (battery is dead and I
unplugged power cord) and I used latex gloves and had the laptop on a
wen table when inserting the new drive into the side of the laptop.
"Dead" batteries, especially lithium, can still have power. Remove the
battery before swapping drives. You should not run a laptop
for extended periods with a battery that no longer takes power --
as the battery ages further it may cause problems for the AC
power/charging circuit. You may find that simply replacing the
battery cures the "drive" problem.
Latex gloves are not a good idea -- they are insulating so could
build up static faster than dry skin. You should use an anti-static
wrist strap. There are anti-static gloves for people who spend a
lot of time working on electronics gear, but bare skin should be
fine.
It's a Toshiba ATA disk, MK6026 GAX, 60GB, another $60 sigh. That
drive also gave similar read, I/O problems so I suspect it is a bad
hardware controller or maybe even the interface connection. Two drives
both cannot be read. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this
happening before (the HD is god but cannot be read due to fault in the
system's hardware)? I hope whatever is wrong didn't damage the data on
my drives.
This happens a lot -- look for a common element: cable, controller, or
power source. Sometimes visual inspection of the cable will reveal a
problem, and there have been problems with the connectors "relaxing" over
time so that the female socket no longer makes a good electrical
connection.
Do you know something I could buy that would connect to my small
laptop hard drive and allow me to mount it as an external hard disk? I
found enclosures that come with an interface for IDE 3.5" sized HDs
and connect via USB but nothing for these small laptop HDs - they're
about the size of the palm on the hand and only 0.20" thick.
There are USB enclosures that accept laptop drives, but I doubt they
are good enough to support the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
I was able to install Ubuntu 7.04 onto my external SCSI disk (ATA/IDE
interface enclosure connected to laptop via USB) but my system's BIOS
doesn't seem to recognize/be aware of it and I tried using the Ubuntu
Live CD to do "root=/dev/sda5" but it only seems to be aware of hda
disks and not SCSI disks (or at least not ones connected via USB). I
am wondering if there is anyway I can boot into the Ubuntu
installation on the external disk. That way I'd at least be able to
save files and it would be a lot faster than running from the Live
CD's ramdisk.
Either your system supports booting from USB or it doesn't.
When you boot from the Live CD, what does dmesg say about the
internal disk/controller? Since you may have power issue, be
careful about trying to write anything to the internal disk.
The drive's relevant partition table entries:
/dev/sda5, Boot, Logical, Linux ext3, 19GB
/dev/sda6, Logical, Linux swap, 764MB
And the boot files are:
/initrd.img -> /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-23.386
/vmlinuz -> /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-23-386
The external disk is a Seagate ST380021 A (80GB) and I'm using a Mad
Dog enclosure connected to my USB 1 port.
When I boot into Ubuntu Live CD it automatically finds the disk and
mounts it but unless some USB drivers are loaded at the boot stage I
guess it won't be aware of its' existence but USB drivers are only
loaded when the kernel is booting so it looks like I'm stuck in a
Catch-22 situation. Yet I've heard of people running Linux off USB
{pen,thumb}drives so it must be possible. I am very open to any ideas
at this point. It will likely be another month before I can buy
another machine. I'm glad Ubuntu came with pppoeconf or I wouldn't
have gotten my DSL connection working. I also have an old 10GB IDE
drive I could try in the USB enclosure if you think that would work.
If your original drive is not bad, you should be able to copy the
data off (using read-only mount) by booting the live CD and using an
external enclosure designed for laptop drives. If the drive seems
to be working, then you have evidence for cable/power issues and
for such an old system you probably don't want to put much effort
into repairs. I have heard of people who connect old laptops
to a desktop power supply -- the tricky bit is that many supplies
require a certain load to provide proper regulation.
--
George N. White III <aa056@chebucto.ns.ca>
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