Hard drive error

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Suddenly will not boot. Message requests replacement with bootable device. Entire drive used for 15.3 Leap installation. When connected to other functioning box and started from updated grub, reaches…

[OK] Reached target Init Root Device

and stops. Using testdisk reports no problems. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

2 
# gdisk /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1


Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Command (? for help): p

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sdb: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): EBDEC3E4-CF60-4F22-BF56-78FF95E5785A
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 1050590 sectors (513.0 MiB)


Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1         1050624      1949329407   929.0 GiB   8300  
   2      1949329408      1953525134   2.0 GiB     8200
3

You may want to check everything using journalctl, fsck, smartctl.

Watch for extra messages:

**erlangen:~ #** journalctl -b -g sda 
May 30 11:31:38 erlangen kernel: **sd 0:0:0:0: ****sda****] 7814037168 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.64 TiB)**
May 30 11:31:38 erlangen kernel: **sd 0:0:0:0: ****sda****] 4096-byte physical blocks**
May 30 11:31:38 erlangen kernel: **sd 0:0:0:0: ****sda****] Write Protect is off**
May 30 11:31:38 erlangen kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: **sda**] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
May 30 11:31:38 erlangen kernel: **sd 0:0:0:0: ****sda****] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA**
May 30 11:31:46 erlangen kernel:  sda: sda1 
May 30 11:31:46 erlangen kernel: **sd 0:0:0:0: ****sda****] Attached SCSI disk**
May 30 11:31:47 erlangen udisksd[1212]: **Mounted /dev/****sda****1 (system) at /HDD on behalf of uid 1000**
May 30 11:31:47 erlangen kernel: EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Quota mode: none. 
**erlangen:~ #**

**erlangen:~ #** fsck -f /dev/sda1 
fsck from util-linux 2.37.4 
e2fsck 1.46.5 (30-Dec-2021) 
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes 
Pass 2: Checking directory structure 
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity 
Pass 4: Checking reference counts 
Pass 5: Checking group summary information 
HDD: 1770095/244195328 files (1.2% non-contiguous), 586841533/976753920 blocks 
**erlangen:~ #**

**erlangen:~ #** smartctl -A /dev/sda 
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-5.17.9-1-default] (SUSE RPM) 
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org 

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === 
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: 
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       840 
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   181   175   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       7933 
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   092   092   000    Old_age   Always       -       8452 
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0 
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0 
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   081   081   000    Old_age   Always       -       14182 
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0 
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0 
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       3102 
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       88 
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   198   198   000    Old_age   Always       -       8394 
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   123   110   000    Old_age   Always       -       29 
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0 
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       3 
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0 
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0 
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       116 

**erlangen:~ #**
4

Thank you for the suggestions. I did try them with no problems reported. I gave up and re-installed and so far the drive boots normally.

5

If you re-install and during the re-installation re-format the disk’s partitions then, any bad blocks will be found and marked in the disk’s bad block table.

  • Checking for bad blocks on a system disk was and, remains, tricky –
    Basically, checking for bad blocks on an active volume was never reliable and, will probably never be reliable …
  • Basically, the only reliable method of dealing with bad blocks on a system disk is, to use another system to perform the bad block scan on the suspect system disk and then, re-install the system on that disk again –
    Often, the bad block(s) have destroyed at least one critical system file and therefore, the only safe way to recover the system is, to re-install it …

[HR][/HR]Yes, yes, I know, modern file systems usually manage to handle any bad blocks appearing in a partition but, especially for the system partition the emphasis has to placed on “usually” … >:)