Ubuntu 9.10 HD issues

[Dave McCarty]

I continue to get impending doom messages on the Compaq each time I boot
up. When I use the Hitachi hard drive fitness disk I get no alerts. When
I run Smartctl from the terminal I get 'pass'. I'm considering doing a
clean install after writing zeroes to the hard disk.

Questions:
1. Best program to write zeroes to all sectors
2. Best way to restore most of my wife's current preferences after a
clean install. ( I thought about just copying her home folder to a usb
stick and then copying it back after the install.
3. Better ways to do this?

Dave

[Cliff Cogdill]

For writing zeros to the disk, you could look at Kill Disk.

http://www.killdisk.com/

Cliff Cogdill

[Eric Wanchic]

First, yes backup home! Second, I can't remember exactly how to do this,
but you want to export a file list of your packages currently installed
on your system. Then, when you have re-installed, up upload the file
list into you current packages, and then run something like apt-get
install --fix-missing. This will istall all the packages that we're
needed previously, and fix dependency issues/update changes.

Second, want to write Zeros? Do this instead:
http://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase. Recommended way
of erasing by the DoD. May not work for all drives though. But I
definitely did this before I sent my broken HD back. It's a lot quicker
and more effecient than writing zeros or random bits.

Finally, copy home directory ontop of the new user accout, In other
words, create the new user first, than copy all files (including hidden
ones) back into the new directory. Then, chown -R newuser:newuser
/home/newuser

Eric

[Dave McCarty]

Using DBAN I completely redid the hard drive and did a fresh install.
After that I still have the message of impending HD DOOM.
It is identical to the message prior to completely re-doing

Reallocated Sector Count
Normal: 100
Worst: 100
Threshold: 5
Value: 65545

Any hope for this sick puppy? Or should I be looking for a replacement
drive ASAP?

If any of you a migrating to 9.10 with a broadcom wifi card be prepared
for some issues. The driver does not load with the install. If you have
a 9.10 cd you can load bcmwl-kernel source using synaptic package
manager from the disk and then it should work. At least it did for me
and others that have had issues.

[Dave McCarty]

that should have been " bcmwl-kernel-source"

If you can use a wired connection you can also use the following==
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo aptitude reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source

[Eric Wanchic]

I'd probably look into a new drive / sending it in for warranty.

Eric

[Dave McCarty]

The laptop is at least 3yrs if not 4 yrs old. Warranty is probably not
an issue. Just wondering how close to failure it is and if there are any
fixes I should try.

[Eric Wanchic]

I pulled up my laptop's HD to compare, and I think you will need to get
a new HD.
In comparision, this is what my HD say's

Reallocated Sector Count
Normal: 100
Worst: 100

Threshold: 50
Value: 0

So, if your value is way over 100, which 64K I assume is the whole HD,
your lucky that ubuntu is even running right now (O_O) Sorry for the bad
news.

Eric

[Dan Falconer]

What program did you run to get that message (I'm guessing I missed something)?  I've got a potentially bad hard drive and would like to do the same sort of check for comparison.

--
Best Regards,


Dan Falconer
http://CrazedSanity.com || http://www.Buzzkill.org

[Dave McCarty]

When you upgrade to 9.10 it includes a new hd utility. It is under the
Admin tab.

[Dave McCarty]

The funny thing is the laptop is running 9.10 with no reported issues
from my wife, If it didn't give the warning every time it boots up I
would not be looking for a problem or solution.

Dave

[Dan Falconer]

I'm running Kubuntu (i.e. KDE), so I'm assuming it is in a slightly different place.  Plus, I can't seem to install or remove anything because of a broken package (see my email about win4linpro)...  sorry for jacking your thread.  :)

[Dave McCarty]

No problem. i had a similar problem with a broken package and had to
work hard to solve it. I think this was what finally solved the problem

dpkg --purge --force-all package_name

/good luck with your issue.

[Dave McCarty]

The HD utility that was added to Karmic Koala is Palimpsest Disk Utility
you can download without doing the update to check your hard drive. I'm
just finishing running the extended self-test on the 40 gg hd that is
showing bad sectors to see what I can learn. The test is past 30 minutes
and not yet finished but close.
The new result same as the old every result that is available is good
except for the bad sector report which is "WARNING" and instructs
replace disk.

Still no performance issues with the laptop but probably time to replace
upgrade the hard drive.

How much difference does the rpm on a hd make for reliability and
performance? I find a number of reasonably priced hd is the 80-160 gb
range with spin rate of either 5400 or 7200 rpms. Does a lower spinrate
use less power and extend battery run-time?

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 14:06 -0600, Dan Falconer wrote:

[Eric Wanchic]

Thanks everybody for filling in the gaps on the Disk Utility. This kind
of teamwork is what I love about our LUG. Knowing how busy everyone is,
when every one of us can put in 2 mins of notes from time to time, we
all get a big return on knowledge (^_^). Thanks!

Dave,
This is probably a frustrating blessing, knowing that your HD is
working, yet your HD is ready to die, or technically is dieing. To me,
this is just another reason why I'd choose a Linux system over a
windows. My Vista 64x never told me anything either, instead, the system
loaded incredibly slow. I'd rather have a system tell me that my HD is
going to die, and have the opportunity make preparations, than to just
let things go until ultimate failure has hit a break wall, and i've got
no backup :(

Come to think of it, I'd like it if my car parts did the same as well (^_^)

When it comes to buying HDs, I purchase whatever is $100 today. That's
about where the bell curve is. So it can vary between $70-120; I just do
the math on GBs/dollar.

Speed on a laptop is a very good question. I like speed, so I've always
opt-ed for 7200 rpms , until I got a laptop. I've heard stories that
5400 rpms is better reliably in a laptop environment because of the fact
it is slower.

However, if you do not need a whole lot of space (no dual booting with
Windows, eg) you may want to invest in a Solid State Disk. I got one for
about $100 with 32GB. It may not be a lot of space, but it is fast. If
your thinking about dual booting, then stick with the bigger size HDs.
Vista was way to critical on how it needed to be installed. Sad, IMHO.