Hard Drive Catastrophes With Gnome on Ubuntu

[Speaker Monkey]

I am not new to Linux, but I am not a guru or extremely knowledgeble. I
will provide some background before I get to the issue.

The first Linux I ever installed was Debian 2.3 that came with a Boot
Magazine almost a decade ago. I remember how during the installation
there were many warnings about hardware, some saying that you could
actually damage hardware if something was done improperly. Now on to
the details.

I had and 80GB Toshiba Secondary Hard Drive in my Laptop. I installed
Ubuntu on it, and got it all setup, and customized, and it was very
nice, in fact I was in the progress of spending more time on it, than
Windows, and that was actually doing stuff, like writing, working on
graphics, music, etc...

Then one day, I decided to try out the Gnome gDesklets. When I added
one to the desktop, the Hard Drive indicator light came on, and just
stayed on solid for quite some time. I got irritated because the system
became unresponsive, I could move the mouse, but do nothing else. I
went outside, took a break, and about 15 or 20 minutes later, I held
down the power button and turned the machine off. Upon booting back up,
it was unable to access the drive to boot into Ubuntu, because the Drive
was not ready for command. I was able to boot into Windows, but it
could not read the drive, and locked up (I had the swap file on a
partition on that drive), and finally I had to remove the drive, and I
placed it in an external enclosure and started the system, and the drive
made this constant horrible noise, and click click click. So I knew it
was toast. I assumed I just had a drive go bad, so I trashed it.

I then installed a 60 GB Toshiba drive in its place, and proceeded to go
for the same setup again. Swap file on it for Windows, Ubuntu on the
rest. This time, I had it far superior to the last. I had all sorts of
stuff installed, and it was great. In fact you can view this badass
screenshot [url]http://www.xthink.org/images/VistaBut_Ultra_Bliss.jpg[/url] [508k].

Then for some reason, I attempted to try a gDesklet again. The EXACT
same thing happened. EXACTLY. Another Drive, gone.

My question has a few parts, One (I researched but couldn't find an
answer) is it possible that by turning the system off while Linux was
stuck in Hard Drive whatever it was doing mode, that it crashed the
heads? I find that difficult to believe (since even Windows won't do
that), but I remember those warnings from the old days. And if that is
the case, what should I do if I encounter a bug like that in Linux? (I
don't like the idea to Let my Hard drive heat up and fry itself that way
while it runs for hours on end and I feel the keyboard getting warmer
and warmer until it fry something else in my laptop.)

My other answer is that somehow I had 2 Toshiba Hard Drives fry
themselves in the same scenario within 30 days of each other.

Any thoughts? Because this is really bugging me, I will buy another
Hard Drive, but whether or not I ever install Linux again will depend on
the information I can find about this. I love Linux, but not if a bug
will cause it to lock a hard drive in use, and then the heads crash or
something when I have to manually power down.

-Bobby


--
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be
one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of
blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson

[Mogens V.]

Speaker Monkey wrote:
....snip...

> My question has a few parts, One (I researched but couldn't find an
> answer) is it possible that by turning the system off while Linux was
> stuck in Hard Drive whatever it was doing mode, that it crashed the
> heads? I find that difficult to believe (since even Windows won't do
> that), but I remember those warnings from the old days. And if that is
> the case, what should I do if I encounter a bug like that in Linux?...

Never heard of such, and my condolences to you and the drives...
Did you obtain the G[e]nome stuff through adept/apt-get, or by other
means? I mean, it's my impression any apps installed through the
*buntu/debian mirrors works quite flawlessly.

While I can't think of anything to help, you might consider enabling the
magic key sequences, i.e. Alt+SysRg+[r|s|u|b|i|k] .
Using those, you /may/ be able to 'i'nterupt some process, 'k'ill
something. I say /may/, because there's no promise it'll work, though it
often can be very helpful.

Most usefull, you'll be able to 's'ync the filesystem, followed by a
'u'mount of the filesystem, possibly followed by 'b'ooting the system.
Do it in this order. You may have to repeatedly do those key-seqs a
number of times to have the system respond, if' it's locked up well.

The 'r' is for raw keyboard mode. I tend to use almost immidiately, if I
spy no seeming response, followed by the other seqs.

I've been a Bit into *buntu, but dunno if the magic keys are enabled in
the stock kernel.
Don't remember if *buntu has the file, if so, then as root, you can try
enabling the seq in /etc/sysctl.conf :

#kernel.sysrq = 0 # Disables the magic-sysrq key
kernel.sysrq = 1 # Enables the magic-sysrq key


Having another PC at hand can be handy. Try ssh/telnet/serial-console
into the locked box. Sometimes it's possible to kill something that way.

--
Kind regards,
Mogens V.


As a computer I find your faith in technology amusing.
-- unknown

[ray]

On Sun, 21 May 2006 01:56:13 -0500, Speaker Monkey wrote:

> I am not new to Linux, but I am not a guru or extremely knowledgeble. I
> will provide some background before I get to the issue.
>
> The first Linux I ever installed was Debian 2.3 that came with a Boot
> Magazine almost a decade ago. I remember how during the installation
> there were many warnings about hardware, some saying that you could
> actually damage hardware if something was done improperly. Now on to
> the details.
>
> I had and 80GB Toshiba Secondary Hard Drive in my Laptop. I installed
> Ubuntu on it, and got it all setup, and customized, and it was very
> nice, in fact I was in the progress of spending more time on it, than
> Windows, and that was actually doing stuff, like writing, working on
> graphics, music, etc...
>
> Then one day, I decided to try out the Gnome gDesklets. When I added
> one to the desktop, the Hard Drive indicator light came on, and just
> stayed on solid for quite some time. I got irritated because the system
> became unresponsive, I could move the mouse, but do nothing else. I
> went outside, took a break, and about 15 or 20 minutes later, I held
> down the power button and turned the machine off. Upon booting back up,
> it was unable to access the drive to boot into Ubuntu, because the Drive
> was not ready for command. I was able to boot into Windows, but it
> could not read the drive, and locked up (I had the swap file on a
> partition on that drive), and finally I had to remove the drive, and I
> placed it in an external enclosure and started the system, and the drive
> made this constant horrible noise, and click click click. So I knew it
> was toast. I assumed I just had a drive go bad, so I trashed it.
>
> I then installed a 60 GB Toshiba drive in its place, and proceeded to go
> for the same setup again. Swap file on it for Windows, Ubuntu on the
> rest. This time, I had it far superior to the last. I had all sorts of
> stuff installed, and it was great. In fact you can view this badass
> screenshot [url]http://www.xthink.org/images/VistaBut_Ultra_Bliss.jpg[/url] [508k].
>
> Then for some reason, I attempted to try a gDesklet again. The EXACT
> same thing happened. EXACTLY. Another Drive, gone.
>
> My question has a few parts, One (I researched but couldn't find an
> answer) is it possible that by turning the system off while Linux was
> stuck in Hard Drive whatever it was doing mode, that it crashed the
> heads? I find that difficult to believe (since even Windows won't do
> that), but I remember those warnings from the old days. And if that is
> the case, what should I do if I encounter a bug like that in Linux? (I
> don't like the idea to Let my Hard drive heat up and fry itself that way
> while it runs for hours on end and I feel the keyboard getting warmer
> and warmer until it fry something else in my laptop.)
>
> My other answer is that somehow I had 2 Toshiba Hard Drives fry
> themselves in the same scenario within 30 days of each other.
>
> Any thoughts? Because this is really bugging me, I will buy another
> Hard Drive, but whether or not I ever install Linux again will depend on
> the information I can find about this. I love Linux, but not if a bug
> will cause it to lock a hard drive in use, and then the heads crash or
> something when I have to manually power down.
>
> -Bobby

Did you ever run 'badblocks' on the disks to see if they are physically
bad?

[Zygfryd Homonto]

On Sun, 21 May 2006 01:56:13 -0500, Speaker Monkey wrote:

> My other answer is that somehow I had 2 Toshiba Hard Drives fry themselves
> in the same scenario within 30 days of each other.

I had THE SAME: 2 HDD, completely new gone withing 1 month or less
then I've changed them, took 2x100GB Toshiba and ... now no problems for
5 months

I would say: f...g disks nowadays and that is all

And, no, completely no relation with linux - I used my comp with win and
lin at the same time so I don't see any relationship
I'm quite sure sellers know about it since I had NO problems to change
faulty disks in the shop


--
Pozdrawiam
Zygfryd Homonto
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