General :: Installing To A Wiped Hard Drive / "unable To Read" Errors?
May 14, 2010
I recently got a computer donated to me for free from my Computer Science class, as the teacher couldn't figure out what the problem was that was preventing him from booting to the startup screen (all I could figure out was that the slot the memory card was in was bad, so I switched slots and got it working). The hard drive on the computer was wiped with a disk nuker called DBAN. Now I would like to install a Linux OS on the computer, but whatever disc or distro I try gives me similar "unable to read" errors. I would like to know if there's anything software-wise I need to do before attempting to replace any hardware. An example of the error I'm getting is as follows (using a mandriva livecd):
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: line 1281: /var/log/dmesy: Read-only file system
SQUASHFS error: sb_bread failed reading block 0xa6e58
SQUASHFS error: unable to read cache block [29b963ea:782]
SQUASHFS error: unable to read directory block [29b963ea:782]
Anyone know what I need to do to get this fixed so that I can install a Linux distro?
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Jan 19, 2011
I am running the latest suse release downloaded directly from their website. I ran the installation after buring the dvd and everything seemed to be working fine. after the installation i ran updates and used it for a little bit. When i shut it down that night and went to restart it I got an error that stated the OS wasnt there. I then went through the installation and everything and it retained the information from the installation before (web history etc.) but for some reason every time I reboot or shut it down the system is not able to read the startup information from the hard drive and will not come on without me re installing it.
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Sep 8, 2010
Below is results from attempt at formatting my hard drive. As you can see a driver is installed, but not working. Perhaps something is missing? Seems a bit odd that a "unable to read" comes back when disk data is reported. The drive just went through a low level format. BTW this is a fiber channel drive. Also on board are 5 scsi drives. Adaptec raid card. Not sure if that would have any relevance, but there you are.
barry@vm1:~$ sudo lshw -C disk
*-disk
description: SCSI Disk
product: ST173404 CLAR72
vendor: SEAGATE
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sdb
version: 3A98
serial: 3CE0SRYL00007142FHAW
capacity: 67GiB (72GB)
capabilities: 10000rpm
configuration: ansiversion=3
barry@vm1:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
Unable to read /dev/sdb .....
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Nov 13, 2009
I dual boot with Ubuntu and Windows, and I just about an hour ago upgraded to 9.10 from Jaunty. After I restarted my computer two versions of Ubuntu could be booted, Windows was not on the GRUB menu. I am new to programming, and am completely clueless as to why this happened, and how I can fix this.
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Feb 26, 2011
i am multi booting with another operating system that doesn't boot on a pc and requires a special bootloader to make it work, but before i can install that bootloader which will overwrite grub on the mbr. how do i install grub on the hard drive so that the special bootloader will exist and will recognize grub and boot Ubuntu from the hard drive instead of the mbr can this be done with the ubuntu live cd. remember i am installing grub on the hard drive, not the mbr and it's grub2
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Mar 21, 2009
Sometimes when I do anything write heavy such as transferring backup or downloading large files from the net, the machine crashes almost completely.
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Aug 21, 2010
I was in the process of backing up data from my hard drive to an external usb drive when the drive suddenly became read only. Does anyone know how I can make it read/write again? I am using Debian Lenny and the drive is ntfs formatted. I have another ntfs formatted usb drive that is not effected in this way.
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Mar 16, 2011
I administer a remote server via SSH that runs CentOS 5.5. I have been unsuccessful in all my attempts to write to two different external USB hard drives with a single ext3 partition when logged in as root.
When attempting to create a "test" directory I get one of two messages:
Quote:
Both drives *appear* to have filesystem issues. When I run an fsck on either drive, I get:
Quote:
Keep in mind this is a newly-formatted, empty drive.
Not putting stock in the odds that I've had two hard drives (different sizes and brands) with the exact same hardware problem, I'm going to assume this is a software issue, although maybe it isn't. Hence, my post in "Linux - General". I've heard talk elsewhere of controller (chipset) issues coming into play. Is this valid?
Okay, here's the information you'll need to make a diagnosis....
Here's the output of a "df -h" command:
Quote:
Here's the contents of my /etc/fstab:
Quote:
Here's the output of "cat /etc/mtab":
Quote:
Here's the output of a mount command:
Quote:
Here's the output of fdisk on the device in question:
Quote:
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 48641.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help):
I've got someone with access to the box if necessary. But it might take days to implement solutions since this isn't his full-time job. Remote solutions are, therefore, preferable.
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Oct 7, 2010
I try
mount -t ntfs -o rw /dev/sdb1 /mnt/exthdd
it doesn't give me any response so I presume it succeeded but when I try to touch it, it tells me it's a read-only file system
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Jan 17, 2011
I recently bought 320 GB Trancend external hard disk and working fine days back.Earlier i could copy from and to the hard disk with out any issue. I dont know what happened after that now i am not able to write any files in to the external hard disk. This is not NTFS formatted device. here is some of the out put from terminal.
Code:
sundar@sundar-sundar:~$ fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
[code]...
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Jun 22, 2011
After installation, when starting to boot, I have several choices showing:
1)Ubuntu, w/ Linux 2.6.38-8-generic pae
2)Ubuntu, w/ Linux 2.6.38-8-generic pae (Recovery Mode)
3)Memory test (memtest 86+)
4)Memory test (memtest 86+, serial console 115200
5)Windows Server 2003 For Small Business Server (on /dev/sdd1)
I used #1 and I only have a blank screen.
I used #2 and I went into recovery mode, but I keep getting the error message: "No root
file system is defined. Please correct this from the partition.
I just want to erase all of numbers 1 to 5 and start clean. what should I do?
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Feb 24, 2010
I bought a MENQ easy PC e790 with 2GB flsdh memory and 128 M RAM but no hard drive. It comes with Windows CE 5.0 The specs are as follows:
CPU: Samsung 400MHz/533MHz processor
RAM: 128MB
ROM: 2GB
OS: Microsoft Windows CE 5.0
Pixel resolution: 800 x 480 pixels
code....
How can linux be installed in CEs place and what distro would be best?
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Oct 20, 2009
I tried to load Red Hat Linux 4 on my PC, which has 945 MB, Core 2 Duo Processor, 2GB RAM, 250GB SATA HDD. But i couldnt do so as it did not detect the hard drive and was asking for drivers. I changed the SATA settings to Legacy but still it didnt recognise the HDD...I have Windows XP SP3 also installed on it.
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Nov 18, 2010
Also I have all files it asks for installed including dostools..Btw I used usb creator, then went to gparted and did something. The system is fat 32 now but with same message, not including ext4 part. Just the mount point message, and something about dosftools and mtools, wihich also are installed.
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Jul 31, 2009
I have a SATA hard drive from a crashed system that was running Ubuntu 8.04. I want to install it in a Ubuntu 8.10 system and use it for file storage. How do I install and reformat it?
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Apr 23, 2011
I've got Vista installed on my notebook and I've bought an external drive (1,5 TB, but its size shouldn't matter in this case) and after formatting it I left 10 gigs for future purpose. Now, I decided to install 64bit debian on the unallocated 10 gigs. And so I did. To be precise: I have SATA drive inside my lap and hard drive (it's also SATA inside the cover) connected to my lap through USB. Boot sequence was 1)CD/DVD 2)hard drive 3)removable drive. During the installation the installer detected my internal drive as /dev/sda and my external drive as /dev/sdb. I decided to install grub on /dev/sdb (it was logical to me, since I didn't want to mess up my regular drive's MBR). Installer created 5 partitions on my USB drive. After booting from my external drive (look below*) I've got a message saying
Code:
error: no such partition Entering rescue mode... and after that I was in grub rescue console. When I typed ls I've got an output
Code:
(hd0) (hd0,msdos1) (hd1) (hd1,msdos5) (hd1,msdos2) (hd1,msdos1)
When I tried to type
Code:
ls (hd0)/
I only got a message
Code:
error: unknown filesystem This occured for all the listed devices... On my internal drive there were (during the installation and running the live cd) 3 partitions detected (vista os, data, rescue disk) so I don't understand the output that ls in rescue console gave me. about booting from external drive: I did that after pressing ESC - I've got a prompt to choose which device I want to boot from - this wasn't working properly; after changing the boot sequence the grub started but with the abovementioned error message...
If there's any info about exact names/types/devices of my installed partitions needed I will run live CD and check it. If any other info is required I will provide it (I tried to describe the problem in the most precise way ) What I was thinking about: maybe there is a problem with ordering of the devices - when I boot from DVD my removable disk is treated as the "second one" and after booting from the removable disk it becames the "first one" or something like that? If any of you have any good info on how mapping of the device names works it would be appreciated, since I couldn't find anything useful or I just don't know what to ask google about.
1) How to install Debian on a removable disk (I had no problems with installing Linux on pendrive but I did that from VirtualBox and it was some time ago) OR how to install GRUB on a removable disk? (unfortunately, I cannot install 64bit system through VirtualBox)
2) What's the logic behind naming devices under /dev? How come the devices in grub have their names mapped as hdx etc and I've read that hdx are the names for IDE/ATA drives and sdx is the proper name for a SATA or USB device
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Jul 10, 2011
I just bought a new hard drive for my lenovo ThinkPad R60e. It is the following model:
Code:
# hdparm -I
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: WDC WD5000BUDT-63G8FY0
Firmware Revision: 01.01A01
[Code].....
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk. If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
It is regardless which kernel version I use (latest ARCH Linux 2.6.39 or 2.6.23 from a grml live system), the error is persistent everywhere.
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Mar 21, 2011
I want to install Puppy on laptop HD. When I run the Universal Installer and select GParted it brings up the Hard Drive (SDA -ATA Toshiba MK6015MA 5.595 Gib) is on Old Compaq Presario 1200. I'll select that drive and hit ok it just takes me back to the Universal Installer Screen. When I first started the Hard Drive was listed and somehow I must have removed it. Is there another program where I can select the HD and partition it etc.
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Jun 4, 2010
I'm trying to get some data off of an external harddrive. I get a few errors:Unable to mountError mounting: mount: /dev/sdb1: can't read superblock.I then tried to run a read disk benchmark on disk utility and that seemed okay.I then tried
Code:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
[code]....
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Jan 22, 2010
Someone explain this to me. I often thought in the back of my head, how do I check if my drive is bad in Linux? I always excused it thinking well I guess besides gaming that's another reason to keep a windows partition around. I boot up yesterday and Gnome was acting weird. Then, it happened. "We have detected bad sectors in your hard drive." I thought, no, you're stupid, this hard drive is less than a year old (however it was a replacement for another one that died). So I reboot.
Boot back up - Different error message. But instead of getting it a few minutes after log in, I got it right away. "We have detected potential hard drive failure." Okay, Linux. Want to play this game? Booted to Vista, downloaded Seatools to test my Seagate drive. It failed... Swapped SATA cables... it failed... So I ask - how does Linux have this auto detect capability like that? As much as I love Ubuntu, I was like there's no way it could just magically tell like that without running the Seagate program. But alas, Ubuntu was dead on target.
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Sep 24, 2010
I have a laptop, running Windows Media Centre unfortunately, and I think the hard drive is hosed. I was wondering is there away of checking the hard drive for errors using the ubuntu livecd? I would put ubuntu straight onto it only there are various items within Windows that the owner needs to get.
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Nov 8, 2010
i am currently running palimpsest (system -> administration -> disk utility) and letting it "check" an unmounted filesystem.
i know its just running fsck.ext3 on this drive... the drive is formatted ext3, and is used on a hardware media player (WDTV Live Plus) in another room... i just moved it in here to avoid copying recorded HD shows over the LAN.
anyway, i was informed at boot with this drive connected that it needed to be checked, after booting it is mounted, but says it has errors and needs to be checked. it is checking, i would assume messages from fsck.ext3 would be logged to /var/log/fsck/checkfs, but i have never been interested in this type of thing before... usually when my drives start to get errors, its time to replace them... this one im sure is caused by being unmounted incorrectly by the stupid WDTV Live Plus...it locks up sometimes, lol...
i dunno, this is a big drive. just wish there was some "status update" other than a whirling indicator... im tailing the log file i mentioned above, but so far it just has "Nothing has been logged yet." (which i take as a really good thing at this point.
EDIT: at the very end of the filesystem check, i got a message about the filesystem being clean with no errors. id still like more of an indication than "whirling indicator thingy"...guess ill go back to CLI for checking filesystems. lol
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Jul 17, 2011
Have been using mint 11 for past few weeks with no problem but failed to boot correctly. menu appeared giving options for booting but kept returning to this menu without going further so I opted to go for safe booting option, after loading a few files it asked for password but kept giving me the message incorrect password so I could get no further. Fortunately I had a cop of clonezilla and was able to restore a backup from a second hard drive but would be grateful for any observations anyone would like to make about this (in case it happens again)
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Jul 10, 2009
I just upgraded to Fedora 11. (I decided to give 64bit a try and I am extremely impressed.Not one problem at all! Kudos to the devs.) Whenever I log in I get the Palimpsest Disk Utility telling me two of my hard drives have a reallocated sector count.I have two 1.5Tb Seagate drives (model #: ST31500341AS). One is a backup of the other. On the first disk the disk utility tells me I have 22 reallocated sectors and 53 on the second. I've been on Google on discovered that there is no easy way to fix this and that a few bad sectors are okay but too many is a sign of imminent drive failure. This obviously concerns me because both my main drive and its backup are showing errors.
I went to Seagate's website and downloaded their diagnostic software (Seatools for DOS) and it passed both of these drives.So, questions: is it possible that Fedora is giving me a false positive? If not, is 22 and 53 sectors something to be concerned about? If so, should I contact Seagate and see if I can pull warranty on these drives? Is there a way to repair this damage?
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Dec 16, 2010
I had a set of rather unusual problems on installing a new 500Gb hard drive on my F14 system, I've solved them, but they were that unusual that I thought I should share them in case anyone else gets the same thing! I'd been experiencing intermittent faults on one of my drives, (lock ups for no reason, occasional boot ups that failed due to ' disk unreadable errors' and other odd errors). I assumed that the drive was failing, but it always showed 'Heathy' on disk utility! This was the disk with the OS on, plus my main 'data' disk had some bad sectors, so I thought I'd buy a nice big 500Gb and reinstall the whole system.
I backed up all my data to an external 'USB' drive, opened the case, (a big old under the table 'desktop', why do they still call them 'desktops'?) shoved in the new SATA drive and rebooted, intending to format the new drive to EXT4 and partitioning it before installing F14 again! OOOOOOOOOW! Major drive failure, missing OS, whole list of SDB errors! Control D, to reboot, BIOS only sees one drive; SDA (I have three, two IDE and one SATA) plus the one I just put in makes four. I go into BIOS and discover that it not only cant see any of the other drives, but my two DVD drives are missing too!
Now I've been building my own systems and mucking about with computers since before you could buy them, and Ive never seen a problem like this one! At first I thought the new drive had screwed my system, for on removal, the problem persisted! Then I noticed that the IDE connector in drive SDB, (the long 40 pin job) was just slightly out of line with the back of the drive, pushed it firmly in and what do you know, everything works! We moved recently and I think the vibration was enough to loosen the connector to give intermittent faults, and pulling the cables about to get the new drive in, pulled it out further......
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Jan 19, 2010
I set up a server using ubuntu 9.10, with two hard drives in a hardware Raid 1 setup and with two more drives for recurring backups. The problem is that the two drives for backup are set to read only and won't allow me to change the permissions even when logged in as root. I have tried putting "rw" into the "fstab" file with no luck, I have also tried running "gksudo nautilus" and "fsck -r /dev/sdc" but still have the same message that I don't have the necessary permissions to complete the task.
**I just tried erasing the data on the disk and creating a new partition, the disk utility allowed me to erase the data and create FAT32 partitions with the same permission problems but would not allow an EXT partition or NTFS partition (it would give and error message stating:"Error creating file system: helper exited with exit code 1: helper failed with:mke2fs 1.41.9 (22-Aug-2009)")**
***I fixed the problem by fixing a formating problem in fstab and reformatting the drives to ext4.(the fstab had a problem with the way that I broke up the lines when I input the info for the new drives, and I didn't realize it until I maximized the window in gedit.)***
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Apr 5, 2010
My portable hard drive (WD My Passport), which used to work correctly now does not automount on my Ubuntu system. It does work on a Windows machine or even when plugged into WD HD TV, which is a Linux based device. There's one NTFS partition spanning the whole drive.When I plug the disk in, I see the following in dmesg:[269259.504631] usb 1-2.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 20[269259.604674] usb 1-2.2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choiceHowever it does not mount in GNOME and I don't see it when I type:sudo fdisk -lAny suggestions why this might be? I repaired the partition using chkdsk on Windows, so the issue is probably not filesystem related.
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Feb 22, 2010
I'm trying to get an external HD to mount on my Dell Laptop running OpenSuse 11.1. When I connect I get the following:
Quote:
dmesg:
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb 1-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=0bc2, idProduct=0503
usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=54, Product=69, SerialNumber=95
[code].....
But am left scratching my head. I don't think its showing up in the etc/mtab - which i think it is supposed to?
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Sep 8, 2010
I installed Ubuntu 10.10 beta yesterday and most of it is working very well. However, I ran into a problem with permissions today.I have a HDD containing my home folder and a HDD containing my data folder. The HDD with the data folder is mounted on /media/data/data_1.
Code:
jensen@jensen-desktop:~$ ll /media/data/ | grep data_1
drwxrwxrwx 8 jensen jensen 4.0K 2010-09-07 23:10 data_1/[code]....
I made sure I had set a+x rights on the file, tried executing it as root but the permission error stayed.When I copy that same file to my Desktop folder I can perfectly execute it.When it's located on the other hard drive I can't. I tried several command line scripts and they all work when I execute them from my OS hard drive,but not from another hard drive.
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Oct 23, 2010
I'm trying to create a dual-boot system, and have been following the instructions here. However my hard disk has bad sectors, and GParted won't let me resize the Windows partition. It tells me to use ntfsresize with --bad-sectors as an option, after having done some checks, all of which I've done. I've successfully shrunk the NTFS volume in this way -
when I boot into Windows, it says the hard drive is the size I set it at. However, the Ubuntu installer and Gparted still see the Windows partition taking up the entire hard drive. So, for the installation, do I have to set the size of the volumes manually, or is there a way to make Ubuntu see what ntfsresize has done?
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