random file corruption on NTFS

[Tony Abernethy]

Wild guess, but that sounds a lot like a disk drive going bad.
An error message like The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.
There is essentially no way that an application (including rsync)
can cause that kind of thing.
You probably can cause that by messing with the controller registers
or sticking strange stuff into the control or data lines.
A bad place on the disk (and it has to be pretty bad or you will not notice
it)
or cables that aren't really plugged in
or a failing or very weak power supply are all potential causes.

Probably no way to know, but does it happen on the same sectors every time?
FAT32 is probably on a different drive, but
(essentially they are race conditions or timing errors)
working on one and failing on the other doesn't mean much.
Although,FAT32 is probably much less likely to lose you data
(I've seen NTFS "fixed" by wiping out a directory that was unreadable)

Curiously, backups have to be the standard place to discover you need the
backup.
(while in the process of destroying the backup you need;)
  -----Original Message-----
  From: rsync-bounces+tony=servacorp.com at lists.samba.org
[mailto:rsync-bounces+tony=servacorp.com at lists.samba.org]On Behalf Of darrin
hodges
  Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 12:06 AM
  To: rsync at lists.samba.org
  Subject: random file corruption on NTFS


  Hi,
  We are using Rsync version 2.6.8  protocol version 29 on a winNT box to
backup a linux (RedHat 9.0) box (same version of rsync) and everynight a
different file on the NT server is reported as being corrupt, there are no
errors in the rsync logs on either side.  NT Event log records:


    Event Type: Error
    Event Source: Ntfs
    Event Category: Disk
    Event ID: 55
    Date: 12/05/2006
    Time: 3:05:19 AM
    User: N/A
    Computer: [ Deleted ]
    Description:
    The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please
run the chkdsk utility on the volume TESTDATA.

    For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
    Data:
    0000: 00 00 04 00 02 00 52

  we use BrightStor ARCserve Backup as backup software on the NT server, it
reports:

    Unable to open file. (FILE=F:\database\base_currency\country_list.frm,
EC=The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.)


  The file reported is different every day, we have tried turning off the
'z' option, as that was causing an error when attempting to transfer large
already compressed files but did not resolve  this particular problem.  We
have noticed that the error does not occur on a FAT32  volume, is there a
problem with rsync interacting with the NTFS?.

  Thanks
  Darrin.






-------------- next part --------------
HTML attachment scrubbed and removed