erorrs from spec_getpages

[Dan Langille]

On 18 Oct 2003 at 19:15, Dmitry Morozovsky wrote:

> On Sat, 18 Oct 2003, Dan Langille wrote:
> 
> DL> > DL> http://beta.freebsddiary.org/tmp/mtwenty-console.jpg
> DL> > DL>
> DL> > DL> I rebooted.  The system couldn't find the disk.  I replaced the IDE
> DL> > DL> drive.  Still no disk.  Checked the BIOS.  The disk wasn't listed so
> 	~~~~~~~~
> 
> This sentense put in in wrong assumption.

*gag*!

Sorry.  Yes, that should be "I replaced the IDE cable".  Not the 
drive.  I apologise for that.

> DL> > DL> I added it.  I also deactivated the floppy because it had been
> DL> > DL> removed yesterday.
> DL> > DL>
> DL> > DL> A reboot was fine.  fsck went OK.  All seems well now.
> DL> > DL>
> DL> > DL> I'm doing another buildworld, building some ports, and running cvsup
> DL> > DL> on my ports tree to create disk activity.
> DL> > DL>
> DL> > DL> When that finishes, I'm going to run the manufacturer's test program
> DL> > DL> on the drive to see if any problems are found.
> DL> > DL>
> DL> > DL> Was this a hardware failure?  System failure?  Any recommended
> DL> > DL> courses of action?
> DL> >
> DL> > I'd bet a couple of (insert your preferred currency symbol here ;-) that you
> DL> > disc has been failed at your swap area; then, when pager decided to bring back
> DL> > (swapin) some pages it previously swapped out, it complaints.
> DL>
> DL> Since the reboot (20 hours ago), the box has been fine.  It's done a
> DL> few buildworlds, and no problems have been seen.  The disk
> DL> manufacturer's diagnostics tools found nothing wrong with the drive.
> DL> At this point, I'm suspecting a bad cable (which was replaced), not
> DL> that I have any firm evidence that was the problem.
> 
> Well I was in impression you've swapped out the disk, not cable, hence my
> assumption. Sure it may be wrong cable; however, I suppose at least some ATA
> errors should be logged somewhere before spec_getpages...

They may have been, but they were not in /var/log/messages.  If they 
were on the console, they were scrolled off the top.  I couldn't 
scroll up because the keyboard hadn't been attached at boot, and I 
had not modified the kernel to allow for that situation.

Thank you.
-- 
Dan Langille : http://www.langille.org/