From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Sep 17 04:44:37 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id EAA29051 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 04:44:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from diablo.ppp.de (diablo.ppp.de [193.141.101.34]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id EAA29034 for ; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 04:44:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from allegro.lemis.de by diablo.ppp.de with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0v2yZJ-000QjzC; Tue, 17 Sep 96 13:43 MET DST From: grog@lemis.de (Greg Lehey) Organisation: LEMIS, Schellnhausen 2, 36325 Feldatal, Germany Phone: +49-6637-919123 Fax: +49-6637-919122 Received: (grog@localhost) by allegro.lemis.de (8.6.9/8.6.9) id NAA08205; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 13:36:02 +0200 Message-Id: <199609171136.NAA08205@allegro.lemis.de> Subject: Re: error reading fixed disk To: paul@nation-net.com (Paul Walsh) Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 13:36:02 +0200 (MET DST) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD Questions) In-Reply-To: <323E8774.1914@nation-net.com> from "Paul Walsh" at Sep 17, 96 12:11:48 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Paul Walsh writes: > > Greg Lehey wrote: >> >> Steve Walsh writes: >>> >>> Hmm ... this doesn't look so good. >> >> No, it doesn't. You don't really give us enough information. >> >>> I thought it was a mbr problem but dos fdisk gives me this. >>> >>> error reading fixed drive >>> >>> It is an eide Quantum Fireball 1080Mb >>> >>> Is it dead? >> >> Maybe FDISK is dead. Try using the FreeBSD version. Are you >> interested in whatever contents are still on it? Otherwise you could >> try just setting it up with FreeBSD. You might need to format it. >> Sorry, FreeBSD doens't have a format program, you'll have to hope that >> your system BIOS does. >> >> Greg > > OK , I've tried to mount it from freeBSD and this is what I get > > mount /dev/wd1a /mnt > wd1: hard error reading fsbn 0wd1: status 59 error > 40 > wd1: error reading primary partition table reading fsbn 0 (wd1 bn 0; cn > 0 tn 0 sn 0) This is the real problem. For some reason, it can't read the partition table. > dev/wd1a on /mnt : Input/Output error > > then I realised that the freeBSD was on the second slice > > mount /dev/wd1s2a /mnt > panic ufs_lock: recursive lock not expected > reboot in 15 secs... > > So now I'm totally confused. > > The disk contains win95 and freebsd in a fipsed partition. I'd guess that this is just a hope. > Any chance of recovering the data or does it need 'low-level formatting' Well, you need to low-level format the first sector at any rate, where the partition is. There are a number of problems with this: 1. I don't know of any tool currently available which will let you format limited parts of a disk. 2. You will need to know *exactly* how you partitioned the disk. On top of this, it's quite possible that low-level formatting won't do the trick: the disk may have become a paperweight. All the message really tells you is that the drive wasn't able to read, not that a format will fix the problem. On the whole, though, it looks as if this is a hardware problem beyond anybody's control. Sorry about that. Greg