Harddrive failure?

[MagnusB]

I have installed Mint on a not so very new computer (an old Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo, 2,4 GHz CPU, 248 RAM) and got Mint running reasonably well, but a little slower than the other distros I have tried on it. But I have one trouble, twice now the filesystem has contained an error, both times I had to use GParted to fix it, as the self check could not do it. I use ext2, since the liveCD wouldn't install using ext3 for some reason I have forgotten now, and today I downloaded smartmontools to check the drive, the result were:

1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 085 080 021 Pre-fail Always - 2258
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 096 096 040 Old_age Always - 4241
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 091 091 000 Old_age Always - 6582
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 4144
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 108 253 000 Old_age Always - 35
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0012 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x000a 200 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0009 200 085 051 Pre-fail Offline - 0

The cycle count is only at ( Power_Cycle_Count 4144), the temperature reads normal, and I can't see any indications that the drive is about to fail, but still it get broken blocks from time to time. Any one have any idea? It might be that the ext drivers are broken somehow, and I find it strange that I could not use ext3, I have used it on this drive before, maybe it could be related? I know the CD I installed from is working, I have used the same CD for 2 other installation with no troubles what so ever..

[MagnusB]

I did a bit more research, and found this, and run some tests of the disk:

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 smartctl -Hc /dev/sda

gave:

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x85) Offline data collection activity
was aborted by an interrupting command from host.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 249) Self-test routine in progress...
90% of test remaining.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (1237) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x79) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
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: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 24) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.

So no errors found there. Next I checked the logs:

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smartctl -l error /dev/sda

gave:

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

An indication of end of life for the drive would be many errors logged, as the occasional error is common, but no errors logged gives still no indication of failure of the drive. Next I ran:

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smartctl -t short  /dev/sda

which runs a short selftest of the drive, but the log

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smartctl -l selftest  /dev/sda

gave:

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
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% 29 -

Again, no errors. So I guess the drive is not near end of life, I am currently running a long self test, will probably have the result in half a hour or more, but my guess that this I am experiencing is software related, and not hardware related. And if anyone is thinking about testing their own harddrive you need smartmontools:

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sudo aptitude install smartmontools

and smartctl needs admin rights, so use sudo in front of it

[Fred]

MagnusB,

Greetings sir,

Interesting, I don't see anything in your test results either that would be cause for concern. Makes me wonder if the default disk I/O settings in Mint might be a bit too aggressive for this hardware.

I would suggest running hdparm and taking a look. The url below might be helpful, though it is geared for speeding up disk I/O instead of slowing it down.

http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/lin ... dparm.html

Good luck and be careful with hdparm, it is a powerful tool.

Fred

[MagnusB]

I do not think the default settings is a problem, I have earlier used Xubuntu on it, and I had not the same troubles as Mint have. I am guessing it might be a bad install, but it could also be a bad CD used, but the corrupted data has not affected my other installs (far fetched, I know). I might try another ISO, and see if that corrects the troubles. It might also be worth mentioning that Mint XFCE CE installed fine with ext3 on it...