USB external hard drive disconnecting

[Bill Davidsen]

Reid Rivenburgh wrote:
> Hi.  I bought an external USB hard drive last week and reformatted it
> as ext3.  I can mount it and read/write files, but for some reason it
> periodically disconnects and reconnects.  I would like to use it as
> permanent storage, hooked up to my computer all the time.  I added a
> label to it and put a line in fstab to mount it.  But I'm getting
> lines like these in my /var/log/messages:
> 
> Feb  5 00:07:05 pigpen kernel: usb 1-7: USB disconnect, address 4
> Feb  5 00:07:06 pigpen kernel: scsi 2:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to dead device
> Feb  5 00:07:06 pigpen kernel: EXT3-fs error (device sdd1):
> ext3_find_entry: reading directory #2 offset 0
> Feb  5 00:07:06 pigpen kernel: scsi 2:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to dead device
> (and more...)
> 
> It's then quickly found again, though assigned sde1 in this case and
> of course not automatically mounted.  I'm assuming the filesystem also
> requires an e2fsck because it was disconnected.
> 
> Does anyone know what might be causing this?  Is it likely a hardware
> issue?  I have another external drive that I've been using without
> problems for about a year, but it's firewire.  Previously, I was using
> both drives with autofs, but the new drive had some problems with that
> approach, too.  (Now that I've learned about filesystem labels, that
> seems like the way to go anyway.)

I apologize for missing this earlier, if this is a FreeAgent or similar 
drive, the drive goes to sleep, the interface shuts down, and comes back 
up with part as USB 1.1 and part as 2.0 (I may be describing this 
poorly, it's been a while). Anyway, help is here, plug in the drive and 
run the attached script (if the mailer doesn't eat it). If the drive 
plugs in as sdf (mine does) run "FixFreeAgent sdf" and the problem 
should go away.
> 
> I'm running F8 with all updates (kernel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8).
> 
> Thanks,
> reid
> 


-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot
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