Slow fsck times

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Sun Apr 24 00:38:37 UTC 2011


| To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org

| On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 09:15:46PM -0400, Peter King wrote:
| 
| > I have WD hard disk that started throwing a sector error. I unmounted it
| > and started fsck on it. Now, about three hours later, it's only showing
| > 2.4% complete -- which seems rather slow.

| Follow-up: It completed after about 15 hours, the last 80% being done in
| some 35 minutes, so I suppose it had errors at the beginning. A series of
| small block-reading errors, one wrong inode-count, all fixed. Remounted,
| but, alas, more drive-reading errors and very slow access times (the "ls"
| on a directory can take up to 35 seconds to respond). I guess this drive
| is on the way out, or, if the Hardware Deities are friendly, to RMA a new
| one. Well, Easter is supposed to be the time of resurrection, after all --

Sounds sick.  Probably some bad track(s).  If you write that track, the
disk will probably transparently substitute a spare for it.  But it
cannot do this on a read because it cannot recreate the data that is
lost.

What does S.M.A.R.T. say (smartctl command)?

WD has downloadable stand-alone bootable diagnostic firmware, I think.
It might be able to patch things up.

I imagine RMAing will be easier if you can say that the WD diagnostics
flagged the disk.


If it were my disk, I'd try to copy anything I cared about off it.
To do this, I'd probably try a dd-type clone operation onto a good
drive and then whack on the data on the good drive.  There is supposed
to be a dd that is mindful of errors.

Why clone first and then only play with the clone?

- using the bad drive may shorten its life

- if you make a mistake with the clone, you should be able to make
  another.  (Example: fsck can actual make a filesystem worse.)
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