daveh@marob.MASA.COM (Dave Hammond) (03/10/89)
Problem: Bad block prohibits Xenix boot. System: Everex 286 with Maxtor 70Mb drive, running SCO 2.2.1 Background: While uucp-ing a 5+ Mb file from a remote to this machine, a rash of 'No swap' and 'Bad block' errors invade the console, accompanied by a loud, continuous "whine-click-whine" noise. I grab for the reset switch, figuring--no problem, I'll just 'fsck' here, split up the file on the remote, and try again. Wrongo. During the boot diagnostic check (the A...Z countdown) I start getting 'Bad block' errors, "whine-click...", etc. Xenix won't go past here. Ok, try booting from a floppy, mounting the hard drive on /dev/mnt and fsck from there. Nope. Xenix says "not a System 3 filesystem". At this point I must assume that the superblock got trashed. Questions: The first is the obvious--can I reclaim use of the root filesystem without reloading Xenix? (my guess is "no") The second is--what situation did uucp get into which allow random writing into seemingly "sacred" disk areas? Thanks in advance for any advice. -- Dave Hammond DSI Communications Inc. daveh@dsix2.uucp
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (03/14/89)
This kind of thing comes up often enough to be worth a posting... In article <588@marob.MASA.COM> daveh@marob.masa.com (Dave Hammond) writes: >Problem: Bad block prohibits Xenix boot. >System: Everex 286 with Maxtor 70Mb drive, running SCO 2.2.1 >Background: > >While uucp-ing a 5+ Mb file from a remote to this machine, a rash of >'No swap' and 'Bad block' errors invade the console, accompanied by >a loud, continuous "whine-click-whine" noise. You're in trouble. The disk is damaged; at least one sector is defective. The "whine-click-whine-click" cycle is the controller recalibrating the drive in a last-ditch attempt to recover from a hard error on the drive. >Questions: > >The first is the obvious--can I reclaim use of the root filesystem without >reloading Xenix? (my guess is "no") Probably not. From your description it appears that the bad sector(s) are in the superblock or worse (partition table?!) It is also entirely possible that the entire disk has failed you; if the read amplifier (or controller) has crapped out you'll get this kind of symptom. A bad cable can also cause it too (but this is much less likely as I'm assuming you haven't moved anything while the machine was running). >The second is--what situation did uucp get into which allow random writing >into seemingly "sacred" disk areas? It didn't. Your disk or controller (or both) has died. I'd try a reformat first; but make sure it's a LOW LEVEL format (not just a destructive installation; say "yes" when asked if you wish to reformat). If reformatting fails, you'll need to obtain a new controller or disk. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, ddsw1!karl) Data: [+1 312 566-8912], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality solutions at a fair price"