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parsim Guru
Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 347 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 2:16 am Post subject: Hard drive seizures [SOLVED] |
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Recently my PC has started locking up. It seems to be a disk problem: the drive light comes on and stays on, and any running processes that need disk access hang, while those that don't appear to keep running.
This seems to happen primarily when the disk is writing big files: e.g. while doing portage downloads or running VMWare. I find that I can go a week with no problem, then it will happen three times before I can complete a large download. (E.g. I start a download, after a minute or so the PC locks up, I reboot, resume download, it gets a bit further, then hangs again... eventually I get the whole file.). Then it's fine again for a few days.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a dodgy disk, since I sent this thing back to the manufacturer once before and they actually repaired it and sent it back. (Who repairs disks? I thought they would just send me a new one.) But I don't have any real evidence.
The disk is a 200GB Seagate SATA. I patched my kernel to enable support S.M.A.R.T. for SATA disks, and this works fine but none of the tests I do show any problem. I don't know what else to do. Any idas?
I'm running kernel 2.6.14-gentoo-r2 and amd64 arch. Mostly the disk is formatted to ext3, but there's also a swap partition and a small ext2 boot partition.
Code: | # smartctl -a -data /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.33 [x86_64-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: ST3200822AS
Serial Number: 3LJ292ME
Firmware Version: 3.01
User Capacity: 200,049,647,616 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 6
ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2
Local Time is: Sat Jan 21 13:06:49 2006 EST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 430) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 111) minutes.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 055 049 006 Pre-fail Always - 31061975
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 096 096 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 118
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 078 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 66005663
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1036
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 121
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 055 059 000 Old_age Always - 55
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 055 049 000 Old_age Always - 31061975
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 198 000 Old_age Always - 23
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
202 TA_Increase_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 924 -
# 2 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 793 -
# 3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 792 -
# 4 Extended offline Aborted by host 90% 792 -
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay. |
Last edited by parsim on Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Johan_V n00b
Joined: 11 Oct 2005 Posts: 56
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parsim Guru
Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 347 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 1:54 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the tip. (I went overseas for two weeks; just got back.)
I ran the Seagate diagnostics and the disk passed a Full Surface Scan with no problems. I rebooted into Linux, tried to 'emerge update', and the disk locked up halfway through.
Any other ideas? It's very alarming to have a Linux box that crashes all the time... so Windows-like. *shudder* |
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Jaglover Watchman
Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 8291 Location: Saint Amant, Acadiana
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Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 3:01 am Post subject: |
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Cooling. Is there any airflow around that disk? Overheating is a good and common way to kill disks. |
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parsim Guru
Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 347 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:54 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the reply.
I moved the hard disk away from the other disks and left the side of the PC case off to provide maximum air flow. Still the disk seized up halfway through downloading a 90MB file.
Any other ideas? |
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parsim Guru
Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 347 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 4:39 am Post subject: |
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By the way, I've noticed that the disk seems to handle READING just fine. I can 'cat' a 700MB file with no problems. It's only WRITING large files (bigger than 10 - 30MB) that leads to lockups.
Neither the S.M.A.R.T. and Seagate Tools tests seem to write large files--in fact I'm not sure they test writing at all; they just seem to test reads.
I would love to find some evidence that it is the actual disk at fault and not Linux, but can't think how to do this without, say, wiping the disk and installing Windows on it. |
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parsim Guru
Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 347 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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I wrote to Seagate Seagate Tech Support and they replied:
Seagate wrote: | Hello,
please make sure of the drivers for you Sata controller. make sure
the drivers are for your sata controller and not RAID. Refer to your
motherboard manufacturer.
Quincy T.
Seagate Technical Support |
What does this mean? I think this is my SATA controller:
Code: | $ lspci
...
01:0d.0 Mass storage controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3512 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01) |
and I have support enabled for it in my kernel:
Code: | CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIL=y |
... so... what should I do? |
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goofygrin n00b
Joined: 07 Feb 2006 Posts: 11
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:10 am Post subject: |
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check out your hdparm settings... (hdparm -i /dev/hd?)
also anything in dmesg when this happens?
On my pata drives, it was auto falling back to no dma and was just whacking my computer. I setup hdparm to roll back to udma3 on bootup and no more issues (I've got the drives in trays with long cables, so they can't run full speed without crc errors. |
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parsim Guru
Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 347 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:17 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the reply. Everything looks fine. DMA appears to be enabled. And the disk is nice and speedy 99% of the time... until it locks up. I have tried leaving it for a couple of hours to see if it comes back, and it doesn't.
I don't get any messages in dmesg or /var/log/messages when I run these commands.
Code: | eve ~ # hdparm -i /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
HDIO_GET_IDENTITY failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
eve ~ # hdparm -I /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: ST3200822AS
Serial Number: 3LJ292ME
Firmware Revision: 3.01
Standards:
Used: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2
Supported: 6 5 4 3
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 390721968
device size with M = 1024*1024: 190782 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 200049 MBytes (200 GB)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
bytes avail on r/w long: 4 Queue depth: 1
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 16
Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 0
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5 udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=240ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* READ BUFFER cmd
* WRITE BUFFER cmd
* Host Protected Area feature set
* Look-ahead
* Write cache
* Power Management feature set
Security Mode feature set
* SMART feature set
* FLUSH CACHE EXT command
* Mandatory FLUSH CACHE command
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* 48-bit Address feature set
SET MAX security extension
* DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd
* SMART self-test
* SMART error logging
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
not supported: enhanced erase
Checksum: correct |
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parsim Guru
Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 347 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 1:49 am Post subject: |
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Don't want to speak too soon, but I upgraded my mainboard's BIOS (which also reset all BIOS settings to default) and I haven't had a lockup since, despite downloading big files. Fingers crossed... |
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parsim Guru
Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 347 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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Two weeks with no lockups... I'm calling it a fix! |
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