hang/crash about twice a day... any idea what it's about?

[przxqgl]

Thread: How to Test Your Hard Disk Drive

following the directions for the console application "smartctl", i came up with the following, which does not bode well...

salamandir@Gingko:~$ sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [i686-linux-3.13.0-63-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%     29025         323066047

i'm no linux genius, but i'm reading that as "you need to get a replacement for /dev/sda pretty soon". is that a correct interpretation?

[LinkBot]

Searching with: 'smartctl read failure'

- Smartctl read failure; Is my HD failing?: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ailing-920243/
- Is my hard drive about to fail?: http://askubuntu.com/questions/22704...-about-to-fail
- etc...

[GreyGeek]

the "System Monitor Processes tab" where? i don't have a "System Monitor Processes tab" in a place where i can see it...

Its file name is ksysguard, but in the K Menu it has the name "System Monitor" in All Applications-->System-->System Monitor.

[Rod J]

i'm no linux genius, but i'm reading that as "you need to get a replacement for /dev/sda pretty soon". is that a correct interpretation?

Short answer "Yes".

Make sure you keep any important data on that drive backed up elsewhere and replace the drive as soon as you can. It has bad sectors on it and it will continue to get worse over time (most likely). The way SMART monitoring works is that a drive will still pass an overall health check but really it is silently dying. By the time it fails the SMART health check it will be just about totally stuffed. So you'd be better to bite the bullet and replace it as soon as, especially as it seems to be the cause of these lock-ups you have been experiencing.

Did you test the other drive that disappeared after you blew out the dust too? Was it OK? You should test all the drives while your at it.

[przxqgl]

as usual, i appreciate the help you guys have given me. i ran smartctl on both drives, and got the following:

salamandir@Gingko:~$ sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [i686-linux-3.13.0-63-generic] (local build)                         
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org                        
                                                                                                   
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===                                                           
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%     29056         323066047
# 2  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%     29025         323066047

salamandir@Gingko:~$ sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [i686-linux-3.13.0-63-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     38197         -

however, this is a 180gb drive and a 200gb drive, and i can replace both of them with a brand new 1TB drive for a lot less than i can search out used drives that small... and for a little bit more, i can replace the whole machine, which i'm probably going to do.

of course, i'll still run kubuntu, but soon it will be on a totally new machine.

[przxqgl]

you guys were right. the disk was dying. i've replaced it with a new disk, inside a new machine, and everything's back to normal. thanks a lot! 8)