Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:13:22 -0600 From: Tim Judd <tajudd@gmail.com> To: Kelly Martin <kellymartin@gmail.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: hard disk failure - now what? Message-ID: <ade45ae90908241313y495832edkd87004485602a42e@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <1338880b0908241129p75b6845cg26d21804e118364@mail.gmail.com> References: <1338880b0908241129p75b6845cg26d21804e118364@mail.gmail.com>
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On 8/24/09, Kelly Martin <kellymartin@gmail.com> wrote: > I just experienced a hard drive failure on one of my FreeBSD 7.2 > production servers with no backup! I am so mad at myself for not > backing up!! Now it's a salvage operation. Here are the type of errors > I was getting on the console, over-and-over: > > ad4: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA48 retrying (0 retries left) LBA=441633503 > ad4: WARNING - SETFEATURES ENABLE RCACHE taskqueue timeout - > completing request directly > ad4: WARNING - SETFEATURES ENABLE WCACHE taskqueue timeout - > completing request directly > ad4: WARNING - SET_MULTI taskqueue timeout - completing request directly > ad4: FAILURE - WRITE_DMA48 timed out LBA=441633375 > g_vgs_done():ad4s1f[WRITE(offset=216338284544, length=16384)]error = 5 > > I could still login to the machine (after an eternity) but got lots of > read/write errors along the way. The offset shown in the errors kept > changing, so I thought it was a hardware eSATA controller issue > instead of a bad sector on the drive - I replaced the motherboard, > but the problem persisted. So I bought a new hard drive and have > re-installed FreeBSD 7.2 on it. I'd like to plug in the old hard drive > today, mount it and salvage as much as I can... especially the > database files, config files, etc. > > My question: what kind of checks and/or repair tools should I run on > the damaged drive after it's mounted? Or should I mount it as > read-only and start backing it up? I am hoping most of my data is > still there, but also don't want to damage it further. I desperately > need to salvage the data, what do the kind people on this list > recommend? > > thanks, > kelly If I were you, get a copy of spinrite (from grc.com) and always keep it handy. It can be risky on a drive already failing. Here's what I'd do.... Buy spinrite, no matter what. slave the bad drive, read-only mount.. even if the FS is dirty, read-only.. no fsck. copy the data you can (if any). reboot and run spinrite on the bad drive, deepest analysis (level 4 or 5) [may take days, weeks or even reports of months] re-slave the bad drive to the system, fsck and mount read-only. compare and copy any additional data, if any/if applicable, you can. Scrap/destroy the drive if it has sensitive data. I crack open the drive and dismantle the HDD platters from the spindle, break the read-write head ribbon cable, and remove the circuit board on the drive when I destroy drives. Each component should be recycled (being the responsible citizen), maybe on separate runs to remove the possibility of someone nosy getting into your stuff.
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