HD failure - 2x on Dell with Ubuntu

[jsacks]

Hi,
Let me know if you can fix the following problem - on a Ubuntu-Linux based computer. Please tell me what you think is wrong and how much you can quote to fix it.

Thanks
Jared


Issue in December 2010:
My laptop running 10.04 will no longer boot. The day before, it wouldn't mount my USB flash but I figured it was the flash that was messed up . But now when I boot I get this weird error which seems its unable to bood my hard-drive either. Super worried that i'm gonna loose my data (good thing i backed it up before I left Cape Town a week ago but there's still some stuff i don't want to loose). Anyways, here's what the screen says....its missing the top-bit because I can't figure out how to scroll up....


[ 1.690987] CR2: 0000000001bc0000
[ 1.695492] --- [ end trace bc60efd5eaab7b65 ]---
Killed
mount: mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such file or directory
Target file system doesn't have /sbin/init.
No init found. Try passing init= bootarg.

BusyBox v1.13.3 (Ubuntu 1:1.13.3-1ubuntu11) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

(initramfs) [ 1.796220] usb 7-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[ 1.968404] usb 7-1: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.045395] usb 3-2.1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[ 2.173494] usb 3-2.1: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.249403] usb 3-2.2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 2.379486] usb 3-2.2: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.457414] usb 3-2.3: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
[ 2.587497] usb 3-2.3: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.652716] ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[484fc00020d71dc1]



After this, a friend suggested i try the HD on another computer. I loaded it into a cady and booted from the HD on another computer. The result being that I received the same error code. He said that my HD was corrupted. He ended up suggesting I just buy a new HD b/c it was not worth the hassle to restore. I lost about 30 hours of work that was not backed up but the new HD seemed to fix the problem

Current problem as of this morning:

All of a sudden today my computer was running slow so I decided to reboot. When I rebooted, i received almost the same error sign as previously. The only difference is the bit at the bottom in brackets (the actual numbers are slightly different:

old:

(initramfs) [ 1.796220] usb 7-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[ 1.968404] usb 7-1: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.045395] usb 3-2.1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[ 2.173494] usb 3-2.1: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.249403] usb 3-2.2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 2.379486] usb 3-2.2: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.457414] usb 3-2.3: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
[ 2.587497] usb 3-2.3: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.652716] ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[484fc00020d71dc1]

new:
(initramfs) [ 1.880261] usb 7-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[ 2.056397] usb 7-1: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.133389] usb 3-2.1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[ 2.261484] usb 3-2.1: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.337390] usb 3-2.2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 2.467482] usb 3-2.2: configuration #1 chosen from choice
[ 2.545402] usb 3-2.3: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
[ 2.661739] ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[484fc00020d71dc1]
[ 2.675486] usb 3-2.3: configuration #1 chosen from choice


Otherwise its the same problem as previously. But the issue is this:
1) This can't keep happening. It seems unlikely to me that two different HD could fail out of nowhere. So there must be something causing this issue
2) I need to recover the current info on my HD because I can't loose this work. Theres about 100 hrs of work on there.

Let me know if you can help.

 

[koffiejunkie]

The information isn't really conclusive. It shows that it can't find init, but that could be for a variety of reasons. Boot off a UBUNTU CD and run the following as root:

smartctl -t short /dev/sda

Wait three minutes, then run:

smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda

It should show something like:

# smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda                                                                                                                
smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build)                                                                                      
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                             
=== 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%     13529         -

If it doesn't show any errors, run:

smartctl -t long /dev/sda

This takes several hours and usually gives you an indication of when it might finish. Wait that long, give it an extra hour, then run the selftest line again.

If the drive checks out clean, mount the filesystem, copy your data off before you try anything further. Type 'dmesg' in the terminal from time to time and see if there are any errors reported for device /dev/sda (or hda if it's an older Ubuntu).

If it shows as broken, get a new drive, install fresh, plug that old drive in via USB and try to get your data off.

In my experience, notebook drives are nowhere near as resilient as their desktop counterparts, and "on last legs" is usually a heck of a lot shorter.

 

[jsacks]

sorry, missed out info

Hi,
Sorry, i forgot important info in my post. When i received this error the first time, I tried troubleshooting it. A friend suggested first try to boot from a usb or live CD. This did not work because it went to the loading screen and got stuck loading seemingly forever. I tried it a number of times but couldnt get it to load into ubuntu from either the USB or CD.
Is there any other way to deal with this issue then?

thanks
jared

 

[Fudzy]

I hope your boss decides to run Windows after recovering from this.

 

[koffiejunkie]

Booting a modern distro from a CD does take forever. If you can't get anywhere with an Ubuntu CD, try System Rescue CD instead. It's much leaner and boots reasonably quickly.

 

[MyWorld]

Or even DSL and Knoppix, they output to terminal (no fancy gui graphics while loading) so you will be able to see where it fails.

 

[Nod]

Try mounting this disk in another Linux machine. Get all your data off, including home directory (hidden directories/files), and then reinstall.
After reinstalling, create your user again. Copy everything back that you have backed up, and logout and login. You should be back up and running again, with all your settings intact.

If you can't do a reinstall, you should start looking for hardware issues (disk or motherboard).

 

[ponder]

What the last two guys said. Also if you have bad sectors issues use GNU ddrescue. I would advise removing the drive from it's enclosure and using the native sata/pata interface instead of USB.

What file system are you using on the drive?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Test your memory with memtest86+

Chances are you might have a faulty RAM module and this is the root cause of your problems.