Re: Device timeout reading fsbn ...

["Thomas Mueller" <mueller6725%twc.com@localhost>]

> On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 03:03:05AM +0000, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> > What does it mean when I get such messages, and then I can't do anything more except reboot (not clean, I need to run fsck_ffs on partitions that had been mounted)?
 
> > To reboot, I have to Reset, or Ctrl-Alt-Esc into debugger, followed by reboot.
 
> > Does it mean the hard drive is going bad, about to go completely bad?

> You could check smart datas; but yes it usually means that the drive is
> going bad.

 
> Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>

I suspect the hard drive may be going slowly bad, may have been a bit buggy to begin with.

I had that situation some years back, some things didn't work fully right, Linux Slackware was OK but FreeBSD was not really functional.  Maybe six years later, the hard drive failed completely.  It was a Western Digital Caviar.

So I need to move things over to the other (Hitachi) hard drive, a refurbished special, have already started, will see if NetBSD and FreeBSD run any better on that hard disk.

It is strange that the hard disk seems OK under some FreeBSD and NetBSD installations.

That hard disk is a Western Digital Green, suggesting it may be ready to go bad any time.

> A timeout can have many causes, but here I suspect some issue with NCQ.

> Try to disable NCQ for that drive with

> sysctl -w hw.wd0.use_ncq=0

>                               Michael van Elst

Actually that would be wd1 in my case as opposed to wd0, but is there any danger in using this sysctl, could it make the hard drive go bad more quickly?

I guess I still need to move things over to the Hitachi hard drive, including user data that could not be reinstalled.

Tom