Re: Disk problems with Slackware 14.1 and WD EIDE drives

On 02/02/2015 19:22, Bob McConnell wrote:
> Jostein Berntsen wrote:
>> On 02.02.15,13:41, Bob McConnell wrote:
>>> Jostein Berntsen wrote:
>>>> On 02.02.15,12:30, Bob McConnell wrote:
>>>>> I have two computers with WD IDE drives running Slackware 14.1. 
>>>>> Both of them
>>>>> have been giving me the same set of error messages which don't 
>>>>> make any
>>>>> sense to me. Can anyone tell me what is going on with them?
>>>>>
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369664] ata1.00: 
>>>>> configured for
>>>>> UDMA/100
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369690] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 
>>>>> Unhandled
>>>>> sense code
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369694] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda]
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369700] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda]
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369709]         72 03 11 
>>>>> 04 00 00 00
>>>>> 0c 00 0a 80 00 00 00 00 00
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369720]         00 11 3c bf
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369725] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda]
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369731] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 
>>>>> CDB:
>>>>> Dec 28 10:53:59 workdesk kernel: [91574.369767] ata1: EH complete
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The disk specs are
>>>>>
>>>>> Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar Blue EIDE
>>>>> Device Model:     WDC WD3200AAJB-00WGA0
>>>>>
>>>>> The most troublesome is running the huge kernel on a Pentium 4. (Dell
>>>>> Optiplex GX240). Most of the resulting file system errors show up 
>>>>> in sda2,
>>>>> which is the /usr partition. Several applications are no longer 
>>>>> functional,
>>>>> so it appears to be losing active sectors to this error.
>>>>>
>>>>> My biggest question is why is there an unhandled code? Shouldn't 
>>>>> this kernel
>>>>> know how to handle all of the status codes the disk can generate?
>>>>>
>>>> Can you run "smartctl -a /dev/sda" and see if you get some more useful
>>>> information then?
>>>>
>>>> Jostein
>>>
>>> I get a lot of data, but I haven't been able to interpret it well 
>>> enough to
>>> know if it is useful. Where can I got an explanation of what all of 
>>> this
>>> means?
>>>
>>> Bob McConnell
>>> N2SPP
>>
>> These seems like typical bad block errors which can mean that the 
>> disk is
>> not well. See this for more information on what you can check:
>>
>> http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/badblockhowto.html
>>
>> Jostein
>
> If that is the case, the hard part will be to find a replacement 
> drive. Anybody know where I can get some new IDE drives?
>

It may seem a silly question, but could you not simply buy a PCI SATA 
card and use SATA drives instead of IDE?

Best,

John