HD Partition Lost??

[Steve Watford]

Yes, I downloaded the Maxtor diagnostic program and installed to a diskette.  
It reports that the drive is failing and to back up right away returning a 
diagnostic code for an RMA.  Oh well, guess it really is hardware.  I will be  
dd'ing it over to another drive and sending this one back.  Then I'll work on 
it from there.

What would be the exact syntax for the dd command for the entire disk as you 
suggested?  I will be installing a parallel drive in the morning, also a 
160GB drive as /dev/hdc with the bad one being /dev/hda.  The bad drive is 
nowhere near full, but is the max file size a problem still?  I shouldn't do 
just partitions instead?  Although the one with the actual problem is a 100GB 
partition, although only about 20% full. Around 22 Gig all together on the 
drive.

Thanks for the help,
Steve

On Thursday 20 May 2004 10:51 pm, Toby Bluhm wrote:
> evilninja wrote:
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> >
> > Steve Watford schrieb:
> > | Thanks,
> > | I'll give dd a try for backup puposes. I have already tried to fsck
> > | the
> > | partition it just comes back with a short read error.  Asking if it is
> > | a zero
> >
> > always be careful to check an already damaged disk:
> > | Steve Watford schrieb:
> > | | hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> > | | hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=90895772,
> >
> > being not a professional but a normal user i think this really looks
> > like some hw issues. so i'd suggest better to copy (dd) all the data
> > from the disk, as long as you have time to. every additional use of the
> > disk may cause its final death.
> >
> > i wonder why your other partitions *seem* to still be ok (e.g. "mount"
> > and using its data then succeeds)...
>
> Ack! I've had too many failures with Maxtor disks.
>
> Anyway, use conv=sync,noerror with your dd command, preferably to an
> identical disk. Do the entire disk /dev/hda. Yes, it will take a very
> long time, but you have no other recourse if you want maintain all your
> data. Then fsck the new disk. Fsck on the bad disk may just make matters
> worse.
>
> Download Maxtor's ide utility & see if you can fix the bad one - may
> require a total disk rewrite.
>
> Nothing unusual about  the other partitions being okay - just a matter
> of location of the sectors on the platter(s). Be suspicious of the
> entire disk though.