Re: Help interpreting hard disk failure

[rickie kerndt <kerndtr_(_at_)_kerndt_(_dot_)_com>]

At 09:22 AM 12/17/2003 +0000, you wrote:
> Which way round are the two disks in the G3?
> > bricker:kerndtr {107} sudo fdisk wd0
> > bricker:kerndtr {108} sudo disklabel wd1
>
> You've used different drives here.  Why not include both sets of
> information for the problem drive?

It is wd1. What I get drinking wine while troublehooting a hardware 
problem, writing email and not checking what i'm doing. I added the correct 
fdisk and disklabel info below. By installing the drive from i386 to macppc 
I was hoping to mount the OpenBSD partition proving the drive worked. The 
fdisk layout looks ok to me but the partitions come up as unknown.

I did try atactl probing the device on the macppc.

atactl /dev/wd1c smartstatus gave ata command aborted. Tried putting it in 
selftest with 'atactl /dev/wd1c smartoffline extencative'. This returned 
with no message. Did a smartread which reported the selftest status as 
hardware or software reset. Sorry didn't grap the actual text.


> In addition, you don't say if the machine used to work, nor do you have
> a dmesg from that machine.  I'd also want to know what changes you made
> before it stopped working.

Machine worked. Been using it about a year and haven't updated any 
hardware/software for a good six months.

> One thing I have found is that some i386 BIOSes report drive failure if
> the HD is not the master on the primary IDE channel.

Have always had set as cable select. It is the only drive on the IDE 
channel. Did try setting it to master. No good either.

> You could also try booting the i386, with the problem drive installed,
> from the CD (better than a boot floppy, as it has more drivers) and
> sending in a dmesg from that.

Had tried that with OpenBSD 3.4 CD. Still wouldn't boot, still no video and 
POST message (audio) saying "hard disk error" which led me to think it was 
the motherboard and not actually the harddisk.

Guess I just have to buy parts and start swaping.

Here's the fdisk and disklabel output with the drive installed in the macppc.

Disk: wd1       geometry: 16383/16/63 [160086528 Sectors]
Offset: 0       Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending       LBA Info:
 #: id    C   H  S -    C   H  S [       start:      size   ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 0: A6    0   1  1 - 62411   3 63 [          63:    62910477 ] OpenBSD
*1: A5 62411   4  1 - 158801   3 63 [    62910540:    97161120 ] FreeBSD
 2: 00    0   0  0 -    0   0  0 [           0:           0 ] unused
 3: 00    0   0  0 -    0   0  0 [           0:           0 ] unused


bricker:kerndtr {103} sudo disklabel wd1
# using MBR partition 0: type A6 off 63 (0x3f) size 62910477 (0x3bff00d)
# /dev/rwd1c:
type: ESDI
disk: ESDI/IDE disk
label: Maxtor 6Y080L0
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 16383
total sectors: 160086528
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # microseconds
drivedata: 0

16 partitions:
#        size   offset    fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a: 62910477       63    unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0*- 62411*)
  c: 160086528        0    unused        0     0        # (Cyl.    0 - 158815)
  i: 97161120 62910540   unknown                        # (Cyl. 62411*- 
158801*)