[Wolves] Question 1st, Rant 2nd

[Peter Cannon]

On Thursday 15 June 2006 12:42, Andy Smith wrote:
> > Rant.
> >
> > F$%&@ P$£@?& S%$£@ fsck, e2fsck oh yeah poxy LVM. So far I have spent 7
> > days poncing around with three differant HDD's all reported bad sectors
> > disk 1 was a 40GB I got the data off and stuck a screw driver through it
> > in temper disk2 20GB again bad sectors, I threw that one in the bin.
>
> If I put several disks in the same machine and they all reported
> failures I'd begin to suspect my cabling/controller/motherboard,
> depending on the errors seen.
>
> > Disk3 (This one) bad sectors, can I run any checkers on it? can I
> > bollocks, the web and the forums all say "Oh just run fsck" get stuffed
> > you lying pigs that doesn't work especially with LVM.
>
> fsck being FileSystemChecK and LVM not being a filesystem, also fsck
> designed to find/fix problems with filesystems not the devices they
> are on top of...
>
> Try badblocks, SMART "long" self-tests or a simple:
>
> dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null
>
> to read from /dev/sda, or:
>
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda
>
> to write to (and completely clobber anything on) /dev/sda.
>
> If they complete fully without errors then the disk is basically
> healthy.  This will work regardless of what filesystem, software
> RAID, LVM or other schemes you are using, though of course the
> second "dd" command will destroy any data on the device.
>
> > I finally managed to find a post tucked away on a missleading subject
> > that LVM often says bad blocks and that fixing LVM is patchy at best.
>
> LVM cannot itself trigger a block device failure as it is a level
> above that.  Certainly using LVM can give your disks a bit more of a
> workout but if block device errors happen then they are as real as
> if they happen without LVM.
>
> (which doesn't mean to say they are really real as they can be
> caused by: overheated drives, poor cabling, insufficient power,
> driver bugs, incomplete SATA II support, ... just to list cases I
> have personally experienced that produce block device errors without
> there being damage to the drives -- aren't computers fun?)
>
> Have you got the URL to this post about LVM and bad blocks by any
> chance?

Um it was on the Fedora Forum I think I did Search---->LVM or I might have 
found it under Search---->fsck not sure too grumpy to remember.

What caught my eye was the bit about apps crashing and locking up (Which is 
happening) and this was an indication of a corrupted LVM file system which in 
turn would report bad sectors that are not really there so that made me read 
on. I followed the odd link in different posts but of course it was the 
usual;

#we-wont-give-youthecommand
#you-wont-understandtheoutputanyway
#nothing-here-willhelpyou-withyoursystem

My particular favorite at the moment is;

"Try using another block"  WTF? do I look like I spend my life learning block 
numbers?? 
Oh so OK do dumpe2fs OK so that gives me VolumeGroup00 which is a big help.

All I want to do is run scandisk -fix-errors-you-basta....... Ha ha ha I know 
I know, its not Windows.

/dev/hda
/dev/hda1 /boot
dev/hda2 /root VolumeGroup00

This is my Dell Latitude CPh j Laptop.

I'm off out to find some cute puppy's to kick.

Regards
PeterC