[ltp] Is my T23 thinkpad hard drive failing?

[David A. Desrosiers]

> I get intermittent but pretty continuous sort of loud thrumming or 
> growling noises from my T23. I also am getting some errors about 
> journal aborting (am using ext3) and holes in directories. Is there 
> any chance this could be somehow related to my kernel or does this 
> sound like my hard drive is failing?

	My T23 has famously eaten 7 IDE drives in 2 years, through 
major overheating issues (which were identified as being the CPU, fan, 
and a faulty PSU).

	A few things you'll want to check: 

	1.) Run smartctl on the drives, check the heat. For example: 

# smartctl -a /dev/hda | grep -i temp
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   161   161   000    Old_age   
Always       -       34 (Lifetime Min/Max 12/53)

	2.) Check your drive metadata with tune2fs, as follows: 

# tune2fs -l /dev/hda1

Filesystem volume name:   /
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          67079e53-1179-4666-8680-15cd24d6da6a
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      has_journal filetype needs_recovery 
sparse_super
Default mount options:    journal_data_ordered
Filesystem state:         clean

[...snip..]

Mount count:              20
Maximum mount count:      30

	Note the "needs_recovery" part above. 

	You might want to use tune2fs to force a full recheck at boot 
by changing the values with -c and -C options. Make sure your fs is 
clean before writing anything to it, ESPECIALLY journal data.

> If it is my hard drive, have any of you been through this before? 

	Many many many times. 

> How much do T23 hard drives cost; this one is a 30gg. Tia.

	Very cheap, keep a few spares around. 


David A. Desrosiers
desrod@gnu-designs.com
http://gnu-designs.com