[K12OSN] Need advice on recovering from failed boot disk

Carl Keil carl at snarlnet.com
Mon Aug 15 15:28:19 UTC 2011


Thanks for helping me.

So, I tried the dd command, twice and then tried CloneZilla.  Twice.  
And the failing drive just kept throwing more and more errors.  Even 
with the "move on after bad sectors" (or whatever it's called exactly) 
switch thrown.  I think I need to give up on the miracle cure.  How was 
I ever going to trust the copied disk anyway?  Wouldn't that just be 
latent problems (half garbled config files, etc.) waiting to happen?

Anyway, now I'm looking for a little more philosophical advice.  I used 
to run k12ltsp on this server, but don't any more.  Now it's a 
web/samba/mythtv box for my home.  If it was you, and your old 
k12-centos 5.3 box ate it, but you had homes, web root, samba shares and 
your mythtv shows on separate drives, (and many complete backups via 
BackupPC) would you take the opportunity to upgrade to centos 5.6 or 6.0 
or would you try to get back to 5.3 so you didn't break all that stuff 
via new versions of php, mysql, samba (prolly not an issue) and 
mythtv?   What's the smart move here?  Also, do you think there'll be a 
problem going to 64 bit, when the old install was 32 bit?  I can't see 
why that would be an issue since basically I'm restoring functionality 
to content that I saved.   If I go, for example from 32-bit Centos 5.3 
to 64-bit Centos 6 will I still just be able to restore my /etc config 
files from backup and proceed on my merry way?  Or will I have to go 
into each one and cut and paste relevant sections into new config files 
with differing formats, places on the drive, etc.

Also, How do you tell if your hardware should get a 64 bit centos or 
not?  I'm not positive about my system.  I think it's a Pentium D dual 
core.  Obviously I'd check for sure before proceeding.  But what's 
considered the minimum CPU that actually works with 64 bit Centos?

Thank you so much.

ck



> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You are wanting the dd command or the ddrescue command.
> Dd is standard but will likely choke on failed sectors.
> Ddrescue will keep moving and retrying failed sectors until it suceeds 
> or times out.
>
> On Aug 14, 2011 5:47 PM, "Carl Keil" <carl snarlnet com 
> <mailto:carl%20snarlnet%20com>> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Sorry. My boot drive is apparently failing. Just got this in the mail
> > after having to rescue my grub/boot info after waking up to a dead 
> server.
> >
> > Device: /dev/hda, 51 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
> >
> > The email before that said 44 Currently unreadable.
> >
> > So, is there a way to slap another 40 gig HD (that's how big the 
> current one is) in there and type a command, from say the rescue CD's 
> command line and just copy over what I have now, verbatim, to a new 
> disk. I'm going to keep googling, but I trust this list more than most 
> Linux info I've seen. Like copying at the /dev/hda level. Copying 
> partitions, etc.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > ck
> > 
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