[CentOS] EXT3-fs error (devive dm-0) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted

Wed Aug 2 14:03:01 UTC 2006
Alfred von Campe <alfred at 110.net>

> Maybe the disk is dying? Did you run smartd (it requires -d ata for  
> SATA disks; this option needs to be put in smartd.conf)?

It's a brand new disk (well, less than three months old), and it  
pretty much did it from the get-go (as did the previous disk).  I've  
replaced the SATA cable and updated the system BIOS (it's a Lenovo  
ThinkCentre M51, and I am using the on-board SATA controller) as  
previously suggested.  I was hoping that the errors logged with  
syslog would help uncover the root cause.  It just so happens that  
the first time after I configure syslog to log to another system, the  
disk becomes unbootable.

> The error messages could also indicate bad cables.

I already replaced the cable, and this is is an intermittent error.

> I would boot from the CentOS 4.3 Live-CD, and take a look at the  
> disk with smartctl. If the disk is indeed dying, I'd try to save  
> its contents to a fresh disk, using ddrescue. Unfortunately there  
> are 2 programs with this name (http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ 
> ddrescue/ and http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html);  
> I have very good results with the latter - don't know if it's on  
> the LiveCD (if not, it should!).

Great idea, booting from the CD as I type this.  I had tried booting  
the install CD in rescue mode, but that resulted in a kernel panic  
when it tried to mount the disk.  Let's hope I have more luck with  
the LiveCD.

Alfred