Is my hard drive going bad?

[jmcross7]

Here is my problem. I have two 40gb hard drives. One runs Gentoo, and the other is used for backups and storing digital pictures. I am using the test kernel's. Under test 4 I never had any problem with stability. I switched to test 5 and now spontaneously the computer hard locks. Upon reboot I find that the second drive has not mounted. It is a simple matter to get it to mount back up "mount /mnt/archive". If I just do a reboot for the fun of it, the drive will mount just fine. Sometimes it does not hard lock, the second drive just spontaneously dismounts. A simple "mount /mnt/archive" gets it back. I thought "OK it is a problem with test 5". So I go back to test 4 and I have the same problem. Same problem with test 4 and test 5 and my fstab is set up correctly just like my primary drive is.

once again I am having this problem no matter what kernel I use.

Is my hard drive going bad?

thanks in advance

[hard candy]

When you boot up Gentoo, does it run a file system check and is there any error messages during boot-up? Check /var/log and see if any of the system logs shows any errors.
Then I would double check the bios and make sure everything is OK first.
Sometimes compiling puts the memory and cpu under a bigger than normal load. The cheapest thing is to switch out a RAM stick if you have an extra. Or test the memory using memtest68 (see the link in the "Hardware" thread in this forum). If the RAM tests good and the problem keeps occuring, check the cpu for overheating. Hopefully your motherboard has a thermal sensor and you could use one of the monitoring programs to check the temp. Examine the fan with one of the sides off, does it slow down or stop intermittently. Make sure the hard drive cables are tight. Make sure the jumpers are correct, either use master/slave or cable select, make sure one doesn't have the wrong jumper setting.

[mdwatts]

Test kernel?

Have you tried the kernel mailing lists at www.kernel.org or searched the kernel bugzilla at http://bugzilla.kernel.org/ to see if this is a known problem with that particular test kernel version?

[jmcross7]

I never had a problem with any of the test kernels.

I started test 5 and started to have a problem.

I went back to test 4 and I am still having the same problem.

No matter what kernel I am using I have the problem now.

I used linux with these two hard drives for 2 years without a problem..

[mdwatts]

So then have you tried any of the suggestions posted by hard candy and myself?

[JohnT]

What filesystem do you have the drives formatted to? Did you set them up at the same time?

[jmcross7]

sorry for my slow response to your replies.

I am using reiserfs. I have memtest86 installed and I ag going to run it soon. I have certanly had problems with the cpu overheating in the past, but throught the use of fans and the most expensive heat sink/fan I could find the cpu is mostly fine now, mostly. Since I run Gentoo everything is compiled and if I let the room get too warm and I am compiling something, the cpu will still overheat from time to time. Right now the room is 70.7 deg, and I have been compiling kde 3.1.4 for the past 6 hours and it has not overheated.

I have checked /var/log and there are no offending messages that i can find.

I have checked the bios and everything is OK.

I have 512 of ram, I will run memtest86 tomorrow.

sorry no thermal sensor.

The cables are tight, and the jumbers are correct. I have had this drive combo for about 2 years and no problems until now.

The fan seems to be running constantly at the same speed.

I have not checked the kernel bugzilla. However the problem started with test 5, so i went back to test 4 and had the same problem.

thanks for your input. I will post back the memtest86 results sometime tomorrow.

[Suramya]

Your CPU might be over heating. My computer was having the same problem (Every once in a while it would just freeze without any reason).

Then I opened the CPU to install a new CD-RW and left it open, since then it hasn't frozen once...

See if you CPU temprature is too high.

Hope this helps.

- Suramya

[jmcross7]

I do not think it is the cpu overheating. Because it would do it with the computer had been basically at rest for 12 hours.

Some more information. The computer does not always hard lock. Sometimes the drive just dismounts, or just becomes unavailable.

I ran memtest86 and it did not find any problems.

[mdwatts]

If the same happens with both stable and test kernels, then I would guess you have a hardware problem as the HD is on it's way out.

[jmcross7]

that is what I am afraid of. I have already moved all the data off of the drive and onto my good one.

thanks for your input.