Persistant smartd errors...

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 10:53:40AM -0400, William O'Higgins Witteman wrote:
> I originally posted this to the hardware list, but got no response, so
> I'm trying it here, too.  Any input would be appreciated.
> 
> A few weeks ago I started seeing prefailure messages in my logwatch
> emails - it appeared that my hard drive was failing.
> 
> I dutifully bought a new drive, reinstalled on it, and pulled my data
> over.  I finally got around to setting up smartd again, and I see more
> prefailure messages of the same ilk - on the new drive.  The old drive
> is still plugged in, and it is not mounted, but monitored, and has begun 
> showing Seek_Time_Performance errors (again) as well.  Here is an excerpt
> of my logs as summarized by logwatch:
> 
>  --------------------- Smartd Begin ------------------------
> 
>  /dev/hda :
>     Prefailure: Seek_Time_Performance (8) changed to
>       246, 247, 246,
>     Usage: Power_On_Hours (9) changed to
>       250,
> 
>  /dev/hdb :
>     Usage: Power_On_Hours (9) changed to
>       236,
> 
>  /dev/hda :
>     started scheduled Short self-test 1 Time(s)
> 
>  /dev/hdb :
>     started scheduled Short self-test 1 Time(s)
> 
>  ---------------------- Smartd End -------------------------
> 
> hda is the new drive, and hdb is the old one.  I am wondering if I a)
> have crappy luck and bought a replacement drive that is also barfing or
> b) have some other component of my system that is messing with my hard
> drives on my first IDE cable.
> 
> I am looking for advice, because I do not have a replacement motherboard
> or power supply to swap in to see if that is the problem, and I cannot
> afford both at this time.  Any suggestions?  Thanks.

I am trying to figure out where in the above smartd there is anything
that looks like a problem.  I don't see any, unless the
Seek_Time_Performance is the problem.

Is the data cable OK?
What happens if you swap hda and hdb?
Could it be a problem with the controller that only affects the first port?
Are you running an 80wire cable?
Are you using cable select or master/slave?
What model are these drives?
What chipset is the ide controller part of?
Which kernel version is it?

Len Sorensen
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