IDE drive - "hard error reading fsbn..." - recoverable?

[cpghost at cordula.ws]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 07:18:29PM -0500, David Fleck wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 cpghost at cordula.ws wrote:
> >On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 05:26:27PM -0500, David Fleck wrote:
> >>Is this likely a one-time thing, or a symptom of creeping disk death?
> >>  (The 'hard error' messages only started after the reboot.)
> >
> >You could try /usr/ports/sysutils/smartmontools to run S.M.A.R.T.
> >selftests on the drive.
> 
> Thanks - unfortunately, that port is marked IGNORE for my version (4.9). 
> Apparently I need 'ATAng', not sure if I can get that in the 4.x series... 
> I suppose I could try moving to 5.2.x, but I was hoping to put that off a 
> little longer - and I'd like to know my hardware is reliable first, 
> really.

Ouch, sorry. I should've checked that this port worked with 4.x before
writing. My mistake.

You could try your luck with FreeSBIE Live-CD:
  http://www.freesbie.org/
I didn't try it, but AFAICS, it's 5.x-based,
so you should be able to install smartmontools
in the memory-based filesystem that FreeSBIE
creates and then check your disk from that.

Just give it a try. it *may* even work.

> David Fleck
> david.fleck at mchsi.com

Regards,
-cpghost.

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