FreeBSD Blog

Hard Disk Problem

February 16, 2006 Posted by KP

In the last two months, my server got the following errors occasionally (very infrequent):

> ad0: FAILURE – READ_DMA status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR> error=40<UNCORRECTABLE>
LBA=154033791
> ad0: FAILURE – READ_DMA status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR> error=40<UNCORRECTABLE>
LBA=154033791
> ad0: FAILURE – READ_DMA status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR> error=40<UNCORRECTABLE>
LBA=154033791
> ad0: FAILURE – READ_DMA status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR> error=40<UNCORRECTABLE>
LBA=150991359

Apache started to generate fatal errors too since two days ago:
> pid 81205 (httpd), uid 80: exited on signal 10
> pid 82339 (httpd), uid 80: exited on signal 10
> pid 81204 (httpd), uid 80: exited on signal 10
> pid 88426 (httpd), uid 80: exited on signal 10
> pid 89324 (httpd), uid 80: exited on signal 10
> pid 81207 (httpd), uid 80: exited on signal 10
> pid 88654 (httpd), uid 80: exited on signal 10

Combined these two errors, it’s very likely a hard disk problem. I contacted my ISP (LayeredTech), the tech support confirmed: “DMA errors with the UNCORRECTABLE code are almost always evidence of a failing drive.”

He suggested a system reload on a new hard disk. But rebuilding the system with a dozen websites might take a few hours or even longer, I really want to avoid such a down time. I decided to order a new server and cancel the current one after finish the transfer. LayeredTech is very understanding and cooperative with prompt response, I am very satisfied.

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