RE: [gentoo-user] desperation question: disklabel, unable to write to disk, etc.

I am maybe "late to the party" here but for specific types of disk failure the freezer trick can work briefly if you have any data to recover (looks unlikely in this case but thought I'd mention it). I did this for my friends laptop drive a few weeks ago so he could back his stuff up to my box via Samba - the drive was shoved in a plastic sealed bag with as much air squeezed out as possible and left in a freezer for a few days. It lived for an hour and a half before dying again.

(Note: the failure in this case involved the drive making a rather horrid grinding noise)

In a rather cruel case of Murphy's law, one of my hard disks died the following week, taking his backup with it. Nice.

David

Note: These views are my own, advice is provided with no guarantee of success. I do not represent anyone else in any emails I send to this list.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mick [mailto:michaelkintzios@×××××.com]
> Sent: 24 December 2006 13:09
> To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] desperation question: disklabel, unable to
> write to disk, etc.
>
>
> On Sunday 24 December 2006 08:42, PaulNM wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > These type of messages:
> >
> > [17180157.020000] hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady
> SeekComplete
> > Error }
> > [17180157.020000] hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError },
> > LBAsect=5, high=0, low=5, sector=0
> > [17180157.020000] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
> > [17180157.020000] end_request: I/O error, dev hda, sector 0
> >
> >
> > are very bad signs.  Nine times out of ten it means the
> drive is dead,
> > or nearly so.  The few times it's not a dead/dying drive,
> is usually due
> > to dma not being supported, or a bad cable. Given that dd is not
> > working, and nothing seems able to actually write to the drive, I'm
> > leaning towards a dead drive.
> >
> > 	As a last ditch attempt, you could try reseating the
> power and ide
> > cable on the drive, as well as the motherboard end of the
> ide cable. If
> > you have another system laying around, you could put the
> problem drive
> > in there to confirm it is a drive problem.
>
> I agree that in all likelihood your HD is toast.  However,
> before you start
> searching on Ebay you would better follow the above advice to
> reseat cables
> and, or sockets.  I used to have an IBM laptop with a
> problematic floppy
> drive that needed reseating in its socket every now and then
> to cure its boot
> problems.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Mick
>

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