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Thread: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    80

    9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    I just upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10 and when I restarted and got to the desktop, there was an icon in the top panel that when hovered over said, "One or more disks are failing." This was not happening before I upgraded.

    When I clicked on the icon, a window opened titled "Palimpsest Disk Utility." It said that my hard disk "has many bad sectors." I clicked on a link that said "More information" and another window came up titled "SMART Data." This window also says the disk has many bad sectors, and I ran the Short self test. The window says "Last self-test completed OK." Near the bottom of the window is a list. In this list, the following items are printed in red: "Reallocated Sector Count, Normalized: 100, Worst: 100, Threshold: 10, Value: 1 sector." "Current Pending Sector Count, Normalized: 100, Worst: 100, Threshold: 0, Value: 983 sectors."

    I wonder if it is just a coincidence that the failing hard drive appeared immediately after upgrading and in fact I do have a failing hard drive, or if this is some kind of bug and I have a normal hard drive. The computer is just over a year old.

    Does anyone have any advice for me? Should I back up my data and replace the hard drive? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
    Thunder Dan

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
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    62

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    I hate to tell you this, but you need to backup any data you need, and now. I personally would put in another drive as a slave (or an external media of some form), boot into a Live CD, and try and copy everything that way. Whether or not it was a direct result of the update, I cannot tell you, but I would be skeptical. But, once everything is backed up, you have time to contemplate.

    Keep in mind, hard drives can fail at any time.

    Edit: And I say boot into a live CD, because you want to stress your hard drive as little as possible.
    Last edited by Zach1188; October 24th, 2009 at 08:13 AM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Geneva
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    132
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    The exact same thing happened to me when I upgraded on my laptop. It actually seems to be a bug. When it happened to me, I decided to go back to 9.04, which then told me my disk was fine. Then I did a complete install of 9.10 and AGAIN it told me my disk was failing. This was 1 week ago, I have simply disabled the message and my system is running fine...

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Beans
    802
    Distro
    Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    Backing up is always a good idea. This has been a known issue with karmic, where the utility is very sensitive. I haven't had the problem since like alpha 4 so I think it's been addressed.
    Registered Linux user #436067
    Registered Ubuntu user #29066
    -----------------------------
    Linux assumes you know exactly what you are doing.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
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    1

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    I am getting the same warning with 9.10 RC, I can test the drive with the manufactures .iso utility and it test fine. I have found other post with people having similar issues.
    My guess this hard drive smart check is a bit to sensitive.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    80

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    Thank you all for your input. I think I'm going to let the hard disk keep running for now. I'll back up my sensitive data daily and see if either this bug gets fixed or if my hard drive actually fails. Let's hope it really is a bug. Is there perhaps a bug report I should file on launchpad, or is it already filed?
    Thunder Dan

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Minneapolis, MN, USA
    Beans
    63
    Distro
    Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    This could be a bug, as I've seen a lot of bizarre issues with the new disk utility, BUT it is important to note that previous versions of Ubuntu did not come with the disk monitoring utility. Thus, you could indeed have a failing drive that wasn't being reported until now.
    Sierra square, delta square...

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    British Columbia, Canada
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    420

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    Quote Originally Posted by mr_steve View Post
    This could be a bug, as I've seen a lot of bizarre issues with the new disk utility, BUT it is important to note that previous versions of Ubuntu did not come with the disk monitoring utility. Thus, you could indeed have a failing drive that wasn't being reported until now.
    This cannot be emphazised enough!

    Ubuntu up to 9.04 did not monitor the SMART status, unless you installed a monitoring tool! It makes total sense that many people will only find out about their failing harddrive once they do the upgrade.

    I would not always trust manufacturer's SMART tools. They seem more to be build to avoid warranty claims than anything else.

    To the OP: you posted two lines from your SMART report:

    "Reallocated Sector Count, Normalized: 100, Worst: 100, Threshold: 10, Value: 1 sector."

    This seems perfectly fine to me. Most SMART values start at 100 and count down to the threshold level. The raw value of 1 also does not alarm me.

    "Current Pending Sector Count, Normalized: 100, Worst: 100, Threshold: 0, Value: 983 sectors."

    I am baffled that the value/worst pair are at 100 with a raw value of 983 sectors. This indicates that your drive has 983 "weak" sectors that the drive has trouble reading from and which will eventually be remapped if the reading problems continue. That value IS alarming and indicates trouble.

    If in doubt: install smartmontools and run smartctl to execute some tests on the drive.

    "sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda" will report all current information on the drive.

    "sudo smartctl --test=short /dev/sda" will run a short self test on the drive.

    Replace sda with the actual device designation. Read the man file for more information.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    80

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    Code:
    === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
    Device Model:     SAMSUNG HM121HI
    Serial Number:    S14PJD0Q814689
    Firmware Version: LZ100-11
    User Capacity:    120,034,123,776 bytes
    Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
    ATA Version is:   7
    ATA Standard is:  ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0
    Local Time is:    Sat Oct 24 10:03:36 2009 CDT
    
    ==> WARNING: May need -F samsung or -F samsung2 enabled; see manual for details.
    
    SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
    SMART support is: Enabled
    
    === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
    SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
    
    General SMART Values:
    Offline data collection status:  (0x00)	Offline data collection activity
    					was never started.
    					Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
    Self-test execution status:      (   0)	The previous self-test routine completed
    					without error or no self-test has ever 
    					been run.
    Total time to complete Offline 
    data collection: 		 (  48) seconds.
    Offline data collection
    capabilities: 			 (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
    					Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
    					Suspend Offline collection upon new
    					command.
    					Offline surface scan supported.
    					Self-test supported.
    					No Conveyance Self-test supported.
    					Selective Self-test supported.
    SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)	Saves SMART data before entering
    					power-saving mode.
    					Supports SMART auto save timer.
    Error logging capability:        (0x01)	Error logging supported.
    					General Purpose Logging supported.
    Short self-test routine 
    recommended polling time: 	 (   2) minutes.
    Extended self-test routine
    recommended polling time: 	 (  48) minutes.
    SCT capabilities: 	       (0x003f)	SCT Status supported.
    					SCT Feature Control supported.
    					SCT Data Table supported.
    
    SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
    Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
    ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
      1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
      3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   252   252   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       2125
      4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   071   071   000    Old_age   Always       -       296724
      5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       1
      9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   089   089   000    Old_age   Always       -       6256
     12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       562
    191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       210
    192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       30
    194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   118   094   000    Old_age   Always       -       40 (Lifetime Min/Max 10/48)
    196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       304201
    197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       983
    198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       1927
    199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0036   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
    200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x000a   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
    
    SMART Error Log Version: 1
    No Errors Logged
    
    SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
    Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
    # 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      6254         -
    # 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      3428         -
    # 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         1         -
    # 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         0         -
    
    SMART Selective Self-Test Log Data Structure Revision Number (0) should be 1
    SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 0
    Warning: ATA Specification requires selective self-test log data structure revision number = 1
     SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
        1        0        0  Completed [00% left] (0-65535)
        2        0        0  Not_testing
        3        0        0  Not_testing
        4        0        0  Not_testing
        5        0        0  Not_testing
    Selective self-test flags (0x0):
      After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
    If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
    Thunder Dan

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Beans
    80

    Re: 9.10 upgrade says I have failing hard drive

    After thinking about it for a little while, I decided I should go ahead and replace the hard drive. So I was thinking about ways to back up my data. One thing I thought about was to make a shared folder on another computer and copying the entire contents of the bad hard drive to the other computer. Then I would replace the hard drive and copy the contents of the folder back to the new hard drive.

    I've never done anything like this before, so I'm looking for advice on how to go about this. I figure the copying of files to the other computer should be easy enough. When I install the new hard drive, I suspect I will have to install Ubuntu onto it. Is this correct? After I install Ubuntu, will I also have to reinstall all the applications I had previously, or will copying the contents of the old hard drive put everything back into place as it should be? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Thunder Dan

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