Subject: Re: disk errors
To: None <netbsd-users@netbsd.org>
From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon@widomaker.com>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 05/31/2002 20:29:01
On Tue, May 28, 2002 at 10:55:43PM +0200, Manuel Bouyer wrote:

> However, as I already said, I've seen drives ressurect when from situations
> like this when used with a different power supply ...

If the drive is not very old, this could easily be the problem.
It could either be recently added hardware asking for too much juice,
or a gradually weakening power supply.

I had the latter problem in one system, and a voltage check while the
system was running showed sags during heavy disk access, or high CPU
and memory loads.

Just be careful putting a meter into a live system: you don't want to
screw up and do the wrong thing.  Read a FAQ about it or get someone
else to do it for you if you feel queasy.

If the motherboard has on-board sensors, you can check voltage without
a meter, which is especially nice.

Isn't there also some software for NetBSD to read S.M.A.R.T. data from
the drive?  If it's having trouble, it should be whining about it.

-- 
UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza__________________________________shannon@widomaker.com