Re: Do I need a new hard drive?
Update. I had a friend with a power supply checker check the power
supply. The +12 volt line is running at 11.5v, barely within spec.
Fishy, but livable for the nonce.
I had been running Finnix as Debian wouldn't boot. I pulled all the
external USB lines except for a 3.5" external floppy disk drive. The
USB problem that started all this went away, i.e. I stopped getting
error messages in dmesg. I rebooted Finnix, and did not see the error
message. Also, the boot speed was back to normal.
An hour and a half ago I booted to the installed Debian system, and
that now runs fine. I see no error messages for USB or for any of the
drives. RAID looks nominal. I will monitor.
The next step will be to add back external USB lines, one at a time,
and see if the problem re-appears. It may have been something as simple
as mild corrosion on a connector.
Meanwhile, I did long tests on the hard drives and SSD; all passed.
I've seen no hard drive error messages all day.
On Mon, 25 Apr 2022 14:56:50 -0700
David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> wrote:
> On 4/25/22 07:18, Charles Curley wrote:
> > On Sun, 24 Apr 2022 22:52:15 -0700
> > David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> wrote:
> >
> >> So, RAID 5 HDD's are sda, sdc, and sdd, and optical is sdb?
> >
> > Optical is sr0.
>
>
> Interesting. (Must be the SATA controller expansion card?)
Yup.
>
> > Debian and finnix see things differently. On both. sdc and sdd are
> > part of the RAID array. On Debian, sda is the system drive: /,
> > /home, /etc, swap, /boot, etc.. sdb is part of the RAID array.
> > Finnix swaps those two.
>
>
> Okay.
>
>
> Rather than a Live Linux distribution for troubleshooting, I install
> Debian onto a USB flash drive (SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0 16 GB). I
> keep it updated/ upgraded, and install whatever tools I want. You
> might want to make one that matches your Debian instance -- that
> should eliminate the device enumeration differences.
Would that have solved this transposition? I suspect that Linux sets up
the boot drive as sda regardless of how the firmware sees things.
But otherwise a good idea, if a bit of work.
>
>
> >> SATA cables -- Color? Locking or non-locking connectors? Came
> >> with motherboard or aftermarket? If the latter, make and model?
> >
> > All black, two red. The black ones came with the computer. The red
> > ones are aftermarket, Alchemy SATA3 30 cm. BFA-MSC-SATA330RK-RP.
> > All lock.
>
>
> https://www.frozencpu.com/products/14060/cab-572/Bitfenix_Alchemy_Multisleeve_SATA_30_Cable_-_30cm_-_Red_BFA-MSC-SATA330RK-RP.html
>
>
> Those Alchemy SATA cables look good. Assuming you like them, I would
> replace the factory cables with new Alchemy cables.
I'll keep that in mind. I have one spare, so I can swap that in in
pretty quick order if need be.
>
>
> >> Please run long tests now on all three drives. Save all of the
> >> reports. Post the report(s) for any drive(s) with SMART failures
> >> and/or dmesg(1) errors.
> >
> > Long tests run about 10 hours. I did one overnight on sdd, and it
> > reported no errors. No dmesg errors sine the ones I reported in the
> > original email.
>
>
> I launch SMART tests on all of the drives at the same time. The
> microcontroller in each drive runs the test for that drive
> independently, so it is okay to run all the tests concurrently.
I did figure that out, and tested the three remaining drives. All
tested with no errors.
>
>
> I still don't see the source of the original dmesg(1) errors. I
> would:
I've done some of these. But as I am not seeing any more hard drive
issues, I'm not going to spend any more time on the rest.
>
> 7. Boot memtest86+ and run overnight or longer.
Interestingly enough, memtest86 locks up right at the 4096 MB mark. It
also completely refuses to run on another system I have here. I'm going
to do some further testing, then report what I see in a new thread.
>
>
> If and when you have convinced yourself that all of the hardware is
> good, then software is what remains.
Yup.
>
>
> Did you figure out what was preventing Debian from booting? Is the
> Debian instance fixed?
I think so; see above.
--
Does anybody read signatures any more?
https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/
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