Hi Geniuses!
I have a 2TB Seagate USB disk that is being used with backuppc to store daily backups. However, almost every day the backup is failing, and attempting to ls the drive gives "input/output error". Looking through DMESG shows multiple problems reading sectors on the disk, but I've yet to find a particular cause. If I reboot the machine, the drive immediately starts working again. If I fsck it, it reports no errors. The disk has two partitions on it, and the 2nd partition is used by SimpleBackup, and this seems to work fine. I'm currently backing up the backup before I do some more in-depth testing on it, and possibly reformat it. I forgot to mention that both partitions are encrypted. Do people think the disk is broken (bad sectors or hardware problems), or if not, any idea what's going on?
On to the next problem. I bought a different 2TB Seagate USB 3 disk which I was intending to use to replace the problematic disk. I managed to set up encrypted partitions on the new disk, and configure the computer so that they would automatically mount on boot.... so I tried to boot the machine and....
the BIOS screen appeared, then it said detecting devices... The old faulty drive is detected, but then the USB 3 Driver is not detected and the machine hangs. It's simple, with the drive connected at boot, the machine won't boot or detect the drive. Without the USB3 drive connected, the machine boots fine.
I'm guessing that the machine, which is quite old, can't cope with something about the new drive, perhaps it's slightly too big (although they're both ~2TB), or because it's USB3, and I think the old one is USB2. The old one has a power supply, but the new one doesn't, but I tried connecting it via a powered hub, and no difference.
Is there any way round the machine not booting? I don't think there's a updated bios for this old machine.
Any ideas, straws to clutch at?
Steve
On 21/04/17 20:10, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Hi Geniuses!
I have a 2TB Seagate USB disk that is being used with backuppc to store daily backups. However, almost every day the backup is failing, and attempting to ls the drive gives "input/output error". Looking through DMESG shows multiple problems reading sectors on the disk, but I've yet to find a particular cause. If I reboot the machine, the drive immediately starts working again. If I fsck it, it reports no errors. The disk has two partitions on it, and the 2nd partition is used by SimpleBackup, and this seems to work fine. I'm currently backing up the backup before I do some more in-depth testing on it, and possibly reformat it. I forgot to mention that both partitions are encrypted. Do people think the disk is broken (bad sectors or hardware problems), or if not, any idea what's going on?
Any ideas, straws to clutch at?
I had a similar problem of a usb disk giving i/o errors but was fine (apart from some directory corruptions) on a re-boot. The simple problem was insufficient current from the PSU. The drive worked fine until it spun down. Then the next request pulled too much current as the drive spun up and marked the drive in error. A better PSU fixed my problem.
Hope your problem is just as simple.
regards Nev
On 23/04/17 10:15, nev young wrote:
On 21/04/17 20:10, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Hi Geniuses!
[SNIP]
I had a similar problem of a usb disk giving i/o errors but was fine (apart from some directory corruptions) on a re-boot. The simple problem was insufficient current from the PSU. The drive worked fine until it spun down. Then the next request pulled too much current as the drive spun up and marked the drive in error. A better PSU fixed my problem.
Hope your problem is just as simple.
Hmm, that's an idea. I'll see if I can investigate that. The drive has its own PSU though. I'll see if it's working OK. I also intend to try and low-level format and/or test it (if I can) and see what transpires.
Cheers Steve
Hi Steve,
I've had several identical-sounding issues with Seagate 2TB drives, but in my case they all seemed to be related to overheating, with the drive in question always seeming to be significantly hotter than the others when touched. I would quite often find that shutting down for 30 minutes or so "fixed" it, in that it would re-boot fine with only, as you are seeing, the occasional file corruption (which was usually trivially fsck-fixable).
That said, these errors did seem to compound over time until the drive eventually became functionally useless.
Simon
On 23/04/17 10:15, nev young wrote:
On 21/04/17 20:10, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Hi Geniuses!
I have a 2TB Seagate USB disk that is being used with backuppc to store daily backups. However, almost every day the backup is failing, and attempting to ls the drive gives "input/output error".
<snip>
Any ideas, straws to clutch at?
I had a similar problem of a usb disk giving i/o errors but was fine (apart from some directory corruptions) on a re-boot. The simple problem was insufficient current from the PSU. The drive worked fine until it spun down. Then the next request pulled too much current as the drive spun up and marked the drive in error. A better PSU fixed my problem.
On 08/05/17 10:57, Simon Ransome wrote:
Hi Steve,
I've had several identical-sounding issues with Seagate 2TB drives, but in my case they all seemed to be related to overheating, with the drive in question always seeming to be significantly hotter than the others when touched. I would quite often find that shutting down for 30 minutes or so "fixed" it, in that it would re-boot fine with only, as you are seeing, the occasional file corruption (which was usually trivially fsck-fixable).
That said, these errors did seem to compound over time until the drive eventually became functionally useless.
Thanks,
I eventually managed to managed to get initiate a smart test on it, and it failed almost immediately. I then found a windows machine and downloaded seagate windows test software onto it. It chugged and whirred away, and then told me it was a bad disk. It offered me the option to fix it. It chugged and whirred for a very very long time, then told me it could not be fixed with this software, and to download Seatools for Dos. I downloaded and installed Seatools for Dos, burned it to a CD and booted, but of course, as a USB device, DOS can't detect it so Seatools for DOS was useless!
I have pretty much given up on it now as a viable disk. I must admit, I was worried about the disk overheating too, so I now have a USB fan that is providing extra cooling for the machine, and where the USB drive used to be.
When I have the time, I will break apart the disk housing and plug it directly into a PC and do some more comprehensive tests on it directly.
In the meantime, I have switched my main daily backup to a Raspberry Pi with an encrypted external USB disk
Steve
-
nev young -
Simon Ransome -
steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk