Drive Failure or User Error?

[Jason Morgan]

I was setting up a new server (6.1 i386 STABLE) - more specifically, I
was mirroring the functioning server drive - when I suddenly got this:

ad0 FAILURE - READ_DMA48 status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR>
error=40<UNCORRECTABLE> LBA=611703808
GEOM_MIRROR: Request failed (error=5). ad0[READ(offset=313192349696, 
length=131072)]

Along with several more errors, which were very similar. At this point,
the server pretty much froze and would repeat the error at reboot, and
as gmirror began resyncing the drive, the server would crash. I've tried
disabling the mirror, fscking (multiple times), removing disks, and I
just got done reinstalling (which went just fine) and resyncing. I still
get the error and the system becomes unusable.

So, my question is - and I suspect this is the case - is this a drive 
failure or some issue with the mirroring process? I followed the ONLamp 
instructions here: 

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2005/11/10/FreeBSD_Basics.html 

which I've used in the past with success.

Thanks in advance for your replies.


Jason Morgan