[3538] in linux-scsi channel archive
Re: SMP 2.1.90-pre3 SCSI kernel panic
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sistema@readysoft.es)
Mon Mar 16 08:12:50 1998
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 14:10:04 +0100 (MET)
From: sistema@readysoft.es
To: dledford@dialnet.net
cc: linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu, linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980316063641.1085A-100000@dledford.dialnet.net>
On 16 Mar, Doug Ledford wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Mar 1998 sistema@readysoft.es wrote:
>>
>> I even filled the filesystem completely and
>> the system kept up and running: all disk sectors full of data.
>
> Filling a file system != all disk sectors full of data. It's relatively
> easy to have a full filesystem and still have free blocks on the disk. If
> you run out of inodes, the filesystem is full as far as the system is
> concerned, but you still can have free data blocks laying around that you
> can't use because you don't have a free inode to attach them to. Or, you
> run out of blocks but still have tons of free inodes, then those free
> inodes essentially count as unused space.
IŽll be more careful about semantics next time. I meant exactly that.
> In any event, these are a couple things to keep in mind when searching for
> this. Now, as to why you see it on multiple partitions/locations on the
> drive, I can't answer that. I would tend to agree with you that something
> seems wrong, but I don't have a 2.1.x system to check it out and I don't
> see anything obviously wrong. The most interesting part is that if this
> *is* a kernel error somewhere, then it isn't a typical wild pointer or
> something like that. It's something that causes a drive to give a
> peripheral device write fault when no where near the end of the device.
> It's hard to make a drive say device fault when it isn't. Typically, any
> error that could cause this would have also trashed your filesystem beyond
> repair long before now.
IŽve repaired the filesystem many times.
Even in funny (or not so funny) situations as not finding one directory
(/etc/sysconfig), with kernel-pre90-2, I shut down (or reboot) and,
after the fsck it reappeared magically. No data loss.
Maybe this is some hint for someone.
> BTW, in regards to the AWRE and ARRE bits. The reason I always recommend
> a low level format after enabling these bits (or after any hard sectors
> errors for that matter) is that my experience has shown that several
> makes/models of drives will fail to remap a bad sector once you find it.
> If it can catch it before you see it, then it will take care of it
> (usually this means during a write). But if it doesn't find it until
> after you've stored data in it that the drive thought was good, many of
> them fail to map out the bad sector and move the data regardless of the
> ARRE bit when you try to read it.
Anyway, before low-formatting the drives, IŽll try it first. Too much
work when the problems seems to come from somewhere else.
Thanks
Pau
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