Are my hard drive(s) dying?

[hybrid]

Almost every boot of my FC6 system, I see these errors:

 

Code:

hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0
hdb: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0

 

(from dmesg | tail)

 

Are both hda (newish Western Digital) and hdb (older Maxtor) dying or is there something else going on?

 

I ran an fsck on boot, and it came up clean for both / and /home (both on hda).

 

/etc/fstab:

 

Code:

LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
LABEL=/home             /home                   ext3    defaults        1 2
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
/dev/hda3               swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/hdb1               /windows/D              vfat    defaults,uid=500       0 0
/dev/hdb6               /windows/E              ntfs    defaults,ro,uid=500    0 0

 

fdisk -l

 

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        3315    26627706    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            3316       18995   125949600    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3           18996       19093      787185   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda5            3316        9689    51199123+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6            9690       14788    40957686    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda7           14789       16573    14337981    6  FAT16
/dev/hda8           16574       18995    19454683+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1               1        3952    31744408+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb2            3953       14946    88309305    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5            3953        4155     1630566    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb6            4156        6195    16386268+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb7            6196       14946    70292376    7  HPFS/NTFS

 

Anyone have any ideas?

[hybrid]

Anyone have any ideas on what this might be? o_O

 

I've also compiled the stock 2.6.18.3 kernel to see if it was an issue with FC6's kernel, but the messages still appear when booting from that.

 

Thanks for any help.

[anyweb]

have you tried running any disc diags on them from the manufacturers websites ?

 

and have you replaced the IDE cables ?

 

cheers

anyweb

[znx]

Code:

hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0
hdb: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdb: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0

 

This says to me BACKUP NOW, this is your disk coming to the end of its life (or if its new then its a dud :(). These sorts of errors are generated when your disk isn't doing what the kernel is asking it to do. If you only get one or two of these, then its possible that it was an unusual request but if its happening regularly its definitely dying.

 

This is a nice example of using smartctl to monitor your hard disks: [/url][url=http://www.captain.at/howto-linux-smartmontools-smartctl.php]http://www.captain.at/howto-linux-smartmontools-smartctl.php

[hybrid]

OK, thanks for the heads-up.

 

I'm running a backup right now, but just out of interest, I thought I'd boot into Fedora while the (removable) backup drive was in, and to my surpise/horror, it also reported exactly the same error on hdd.

 

This backup drive is fairly new and is never spinning unless I'm doing or restoring a backup (it sits in another machine's hard drive bay which has the IDE power cable to it pulled out).

 

So does this tell me that all three drives are dying simultaneously or is it just the kernel jumping the gun to try and access some data off the drive.

 

Another thing I noticed is that these errors always occur just before you see the line:

 

Code:

Starting smartd...             [ OK ]

 

on the bootup.

 

As I understand it, smartd is something to do with hard drive monitoring, so does this tell the clever people (:P) anything?

 

Thanks for the help anyway. ;)

[znx]

As I understand it, smartd is something to do with hard drive monitoring, so does this tell the clever people (:P) anything?

 

Does it only occur on boot? Or is it during use as well? It could be an issue with smartd attempting to do something on start to the disks.

[hybrid]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="2586" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>As I understand it, smartd is something to do with hard drive monitoring, so does this tell the clever people (:P) anything?

 

Does it only occur on boot? Or is it during use as well? It could be an issue with smartd attempting to do something on start to the disks.



</div></blockquote>
 

From what I can tell, it appears to be only coming up on boot.

 

The machine has been up for about 5 hours now, and no errors appear in dmesg or /var/log/messages about the HD since the bootup time.

[hybrid]

I found the problem, and thankfully it's means my hard drives are not (and aren't likely to become) two expensive doorstops.

 

I got contacted by someone reading this thread, and it turns out that the error codes are related to the drive not understanding SMART commands, because SMART is for some reason disabled at the BIOS level (I don't exactly understand why, but I do have the fix).

 

If anyone else experiences this behaviour, this is how I fixed it.

 

I rebooted and headed into the BIOS setup and found an option called 'Hard Drive SMART Enabled', which was turned off. Turning that option on, saving the BIOS settings and rebooting means the errors no longer appear. Yay! :)

[anyweb]

interesting result, what computer brand/model is this ? so others can google it

 

cheers

anyweb

[hybrid]

interesting result, what computer brand/model is this ? so others can google it 

cheers

anyweb

 

It's actually a semi-self built machine, but this is with the Foxconn 661FXME motherboard (SiS 661FX chipset).