I'd recommend checking out http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ the SMART package has been an incredible boon to me for diagnosing hard disk problems. One caveat, though is that your hard drive must be new enough to have the SMART extensions. If your drive is <4 years old, you should be good to go. There's even a smartd that you can keep running that will notify you if one of your disks starts having problems. I've had quite a bit of experience with this package, and I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about it. -Erik Rick Meyerhoff wrote: > I thought someone more knowledgeable than I would have replied to you by > now?! I guess I'll take a wack at it! > > Chris Frederick wrote: > >> I have a server running Mandrake 9.0, 2 Western Digital 60Gig drives, >> and 1 Maxtor 20Gig drive. Lately I've noticed it making high pitched > > > You mention the makes and sizes of the drives but you don't mention > which one is making noise. > >> noises (like a disk would make right before it crashes), and the machine >> itself has crashed a few times now. There's an e2fs error writing to >> certain blocks. They seem to be random, and in large numbers. I've ran >> e2fsck, checked for bad blocks in read only mode, and so far it's found > > > Is the noisy disk the same one that shows write errors? > >> nothing. Changing /etc/fstab to mount all non essential disks read >> only, and removing a good number of cron jobs, will let it run without >> any errors, but that kinda defeats most of the functions of the server >> (backups). >> >> Is it possible that a disk can fail on a write, but not a read? Or am I > > > I would think that this is possible but I don't know. > >> getting a different problem (I hope)? And if it is a disk crash, how >> long would you guess I have till it's no longer readable? I'm about >> three weeks away from affording a replacement disk. > > > After you have determined which disk is noisy/has errors my advice would > depend on what kind of data is on the drive: > > If the data is: > valuable changes daily I suggest that you: > --------- ------------- --------------------------------------- > yes yes backup the data ASAP and stop using the drive > > no yes replace the drive after it fails > > yes no backup the data ASAP and replace the > drive when you can > > no no replace the drive after it fails > >> >> Thanks all... > > _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list