Random truncated files on USB hard disk with timeouts; how to debug?

[Arrigo Marchiori]

Hello Poul-Henning,

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 06:33:21AM +0000, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

> --------
> In message <20161019062812.GA93031 at nuvolo>, Arrigo Marchiori writes:
> 
> >It is a USB disk bought some years ago, that contains actually
> >rotating platters. It has a Y-shaped cable, to get power from two
> >ports.
> 
> Y-cables are a big warning sign.
> 
> You can try plugging the "power-only" plug into a high quality 1
> ampere USB charger, but that is no guarantee for success.

Yes, I also thought so at first.

But I also believe that if anything goes wrong at the hardware level,
I should get a big warning from the kernel, instead of a funny
apparently-truncated file, that returns to be readable at next
reboot...?

This is only my humble opinion, of course. If there are any other
assumptions that I should be following, please address me to the
appropriate documentation!

I think this occasion can be precious to find the missing piece, that
could lead to the users getting advice _before_ they find out that
some files are temporarily unreadable. Or maybe, even fixing this
problem...?

Best regards,
-- 
rigo

http://rigo.altervista.org