The Site With the Lamp

February 5, 2006

All of a sudden I noticed that my computer is running slower than normal. Compiling java code seemed particularly slow. I immediately suspected the hard disk, I get at least one disk crash per year just it's about time for one. Sure enough the /var/log/messages says:

kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=39506399, sector=39506399

Now there are many articles on the web that says this is a kernel/reiserfs bug. Such views will be reinforced by messages such as the one below which show up the log file:

ide: failed opcode was: unknown
kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdb, sector 39506399
kernel: ------------[ cut here ]------------
kernel: kernel BUG at fs/reiserfs/file.c:534!
....

The ReiserFS FAQ clearly says that this is a hardware fault. Getting a hard disk is not a worry (they are cheaper than they used to be). Recovering the data is not a worry (I have boxes of CD and DVD backups and everything, even mails are subversioned.

The trouble is that this particular hard drive is one of a striped pair (software raid), now the partitions have to be changed and the raid array taken down and remade after installing a new hard disk. And I might have to do all that all over again soon when Fedora Core 5 is release in the coming weeks.