[clug] Possible Imminent Hard DrIve Failure

[Peter Barker]

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008, Paul Matthews wrote:

> After looking though /var/log/messages today cannot see any messages
> indicating which drive it was. Is there any other means to determine?

Check "dmesg" output, which may or may not be going into 
/var/log/messages.

Install some "SMART" tools (apt-get install smartmontools).  Check the 
output of "smartctl -a <devicename>".

Oh, another option is to NOT back up ALL of your data *right* away.  This 
will *certainly* tell you which drive is failing - it will fail in an 
*extraodinarily* short space of time, taking all of your data with it.

So - once you've backed your data up - you can also attempt various 
stress-tests on the disks.  Try sequentially reading from each of them as 
a starting point; "sudo dd if=/dev/<device> of=/dev/null".

Yours,
-- 
Peter Barker                          |   Programmer,Sysadmin,Geek.
pbarker at barker.dropbear.id.au	      |   You need a bigger hammer.
:: It's a hack! Expect underscores! - Nigel Williams