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Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 07:36:00 -0700
From: "M.R.Murphy" <mrm@Mole.ORG>
Message-Id: <199705091436.HAA26735@meerkat.mole.org>
To: bill@twwells.com, dufault@hda.com
Subject: Re: scsi MEDIUM ERRORS?
Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
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>
> > I just installed a new 2.1G scsi disk on my 2.1.5 system and got
> > these errors:
> > 
> > (lots of these, with different "info" values)
> > sd2(aha0:2:0): MEDIUM ERROR info:a246b asc:11,1 Read retries exhausted
>
> (...)
>
> > I thought scsi was supposed to deal with these sort of things? Is
> > there something I need to do to make these go away?
>
> Note that these are unrecovered read errors. The SCSI spec doesn't
> permit the drive to fix these.  Since this is a new drive, format
> it with scsiformat, verify that ARRE and AWRE are on in mode page 1,
> and then try again.  It is disconcerting that you received the
> drive like this.
>

If scsiformat doesn't work, as it didn't for me in a similar case,
try rewriting the whole drive, as in

  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsdN bs=1b

after making sure ARRE and AWRE are on in mode page 1. That way
the drive can try to reassign blocks for write error.

I'd try to get the drive replaced or repaired, though. It's not
a Quantum Empire by any chance, is it? :-)

--
Mike Murphy  mrm@Mole.ORG  +1 619 598 5874
Better is the enemy of Good