recover data from failed hard drives on Fedora Core 1

[jludwig]

On Wed, 2004-05-05 at 18:29, Guolin Cheng wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>  
> 
>  I got a problem to recover data from Fedora core 1 hosts when hard
> drives fail. I know that the disks fail because there are error
> messages like the following logged in /var/log/messages.
> 
>  
> 
> …..
> 
> arc144: Apr 24 12:52:53 arc144 kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 {
> DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> 
> arc144: Apr 24 12:52:53 arc144 kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 {
> UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=90186647, sector=52432952
> 
> arc144: Apr 24 12:52:53 arc144 kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev
> 03:0b (hda), sector 52432952
> 
> …..
> 
>  
> 
> My question is: How to figure out the file|directory occupying the
> failed sector|LBAsect?  If I can figure it out then I can skipped the
> files|directories since the failed files will sometimes bring the
> failed drive to completely inaccessible status on Fedora Core 1 hosts,
> which is quite different from my former Redhat 8.0. 
> 
>  
> 
>  Another questions is, what is the exact difference between LABsect
> and sector in the above message? Can I find any helpful&complete info
> on ext2|ext3 internals? At least related to disk space allocation.
> To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list


1) LBAsect would be more properly rendered LBA  sect. 

2) It is actually the drive that freezes the machine not the file.

3) The drive may be experiencing a head/electronics failure which may be
totally random in nature.

4) I have found that failing drives usually 'do better' when cold (just
turned on).

5) If it is damaged media usually the hard drive DSP and firmware will
isolate the bad areas and move the data to "spare sectors".

6) With all this in mind, I suggest you remove data starting with the
most important/critical. Ignore replaceable stuff Gnome, Xfree, other
such software. Remember special configuration files.

The way I have usually done this is to remove the drive and install a
new drive. Reload all available software and make directories for the
old drive to mount on (S.A. /boot1, /home1, /usr1, etc.) and offload
everything I can (This may take several reboots with cool down time).


-- 
jludwig <wralphie at comcast.net>