[CentOS] Bad disk?

Sun Nov 20 03:11:14 UTC 2005
Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu>

On Saturday 19 November 2005 13:40, Morten wrote:
> Hi, I get the below from dmesg. The server seems to run fine, but it
> does worry me. What should I do? Other than take a backup.. :-)

> hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=11242764,
> high=0, low=11242764, sector=11242760

I have seen several causes for this; three of the most common are:
1.)	A failing disk; run 'smartctl -a' and see what SMART tells you about the 
disk's health;
2.)	A disk that got 'scribbled' due to a power interruption to the drive 
(either through a failing power supply, or an actual electrical blip or 
failure) while the drive was writing; the manufacturer's 'recovery' program 
can typically remap sectors around this sort of damage;
3.)	A corrupted filesystem that has linkages outside the drive's boundaries; 
if the drive tries to seek past the end of the disk you get this.  The LBA 
numbers you have would seem to rule this out, but you didn't say how big the 
disk was.

In short, an UncorrectableError is exactly what it says it is; it couldn't 
read a sector it tried to read.  
-- 
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu