From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Nov 10 19:56:48 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0AB9216A418 for ; Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:56:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from naylor.b.david@gmail.com) Received: from py-out-1112.google.com (py-out-1112.google.com [64.233.166.177]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE43813C48D for ; Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:56:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from naylor.b.david@gmail.com) Received: by py-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id u77so377547pyb for ; Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:56:38 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:sender:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references:x-google-sender-auth; bh=wCVJ/ElJ4WeesKIIWsjTyH0Q64qQVZD4/YPzD6X9P6k=; b=nXU5LfWzi+/mnHdfITFN3G4rURr84Rouyk1GH0fmcUCndiBezHhvNaIfLQRXiNhVrJ/V1OaGNliNgOOQhsVmu0AXp9hRlFhPIrikYC3YM4/05gL3V0aE7gPG+ftqNTuvTat6jZT2h9A3qO2eJZh0LJnVe0tTCqRg8zJ6usnsbCU= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:sender:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references:x-google-sender-auth; b=QgBKFXZzXr5X+UcFIsVk1YgO2zNZFsKcWlG+3BdTmGq+x66acc7DGF+1l3vYvaTyym3Wor6GNHZgQLcmOp3BAvyw0lx9C4TxNEBmGN5aGdnrAe8songRI6QrPMacjMyQlmc0Rc2hwpOjeOKcYmj/6kY3hW7IW6rtvIB1Y5E94eY= Received: by 10.65.121.9 with SMTP id y9mr10073267qbm.1194724596726; Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:56:36 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.64.180.6 with HTTP; Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:56:36 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 21:56:36 +0200 From: "David Naylor" Sender: naylor.b.david@gmail.com To: "Jeremy Chadwick" In-Reply-To: <20071109065201.GA47328@eos.sc1.parodius.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20071108212921.GA34721@eos.sc1.parodius.com> <20071109065201.GA47328@eos.sc1.parodius.com> X-Google-Sender-Auth: 57497b9d7771e0f1 Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Harddisk failure causes system crash, please help X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:56:48 -0000 On 09/11/2007, Jeremy Chadwick wrote: > Okay, so it's probably that area of the disk which has some problem... It may but I can confirm that FreeBSD is not handling it properly (see below) > There's a free utility called HDTune which has a sector scanner which > explicitly looks for bad sectors ("Error Scan"). I would *uncheck* the I got it and it works well. Thank you. The first time I used it there was a corrupt sector in approximately the area ad0e occupied (where the crashes from reads were from). I then did a dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/ad0e bs=64k and the error disappeared (from HDTune). Something strange did appear though, a bad sector near the beginning of the drive however I have not seen it since. I have run multiple tests since and all were green. > You might also be able to use that utility to get SMART stats for the > drive, although smartctl -a /dev/ad0 should suffice too. The disk Sorry but I have not used smartctl since as the dd wiped out large portions of FreeBSD and I have not reinstalled it. In summary: I have been having problems with FreeBSD when reading from a certain area of the hard disk (a system crash occurs). I have been able to determine that the hard drive is not corrupting (or the corrupting has stabilized...?). More importantly I have determined that other operating systems have not been having problems (Windows and Linux (openSUSE 10.2 Rescue)) thus I conclude that FreeBSD is in fact not handling the hardware properly (malfunctioning or buggy driver? or more likely not with a required quark). When I first installed FreeBSD I did a dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad0 bs=1M. I think this may have contributed to the problem. I read somewhere that optical drives do not handle 0's and 1's in continues succession well and this may be applicable to hard drives (comments?) and that FreeBSD is not handing correctly. Should I submit a PR or is this better handled on the mailing list (if it should be handled at all)? Thank you for your help. David P.S. After further testing the occurrence of the crashes seems to be less consistent. I will continue some testing to see if I can determine a consistent pattern.