Interesting 60gig Hitachi drive

gomtuu 2009-01-13, 20:46 #16

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In reply to post ID 14906

Quote by peter:
I should hastily add that I've never tried any of that. But it ought to work.

Yeah, I got that.

Expanding it to 120 may still not work (we'll see), but 100 or 99 might, and 80 definitely should, assuming it's not just a matter of the hardware being utterly incompatible. Even if I could only get the 120GB drive to work at 60GB, I might prefer it to the actual 60GB drive because it's quieter and it has higher areal density, which should allow higher transfer speeds and thus slightly longer battery life.

Quote by peter:
Quote by gomtuu:
I'll try that if I can't get sveta to format it.
I'm pretty sure that only the firmware updater itself, can format a drive that hasn't already had a successful firmware install.

Yeah, sveta ("dBpowerAMP Music Converter") doesn't recognize the device. It just says "Connecting to device..." in the status bar and then seems to give up after 20-30 seconds. Could that be because it won't recognize a Karma at all when it's in Recovery Mode?

By the way, I mentioned before that the Rio firmware updater fails differently when I try to update the firmware without formatting. The error message it gives is "The upgrade was unsuccessful. Error 0xc004a006". It says that within 1-2 seconds of beginning the update. When I do tell it to format, the "device attached to the system is not functioning" error appears about 10 seconds after starting the update. So that one could be a timeout.

Anyway, I guess I'll have to invest in a USB-to-2.5" IDE adapter and then hook the 1.8" drives up to it through the Addonics adapter and use dd like you said.

gomtuu 2009-01-15, 10:40 #17

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Interesting...

When I plug the 60GB Hitachi drive into my computer, it shows up as:

/dev/sdd
/dev/sdd1
/dev/sdd2

But when I plug in the 120GB Toshiba drive, it doesn't show up in /dev at all. A dud, perhaps? Maybe there's hope for a 120GB Karma after all...

straycat 2009-01-15, 10:54 #18

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have you tried to copy the 60gb partitions to the 120gb or maybe clone it (disk image bit-level copy)?

peter 2009-01-15, 10:57 #19

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Quote by gomtuu:
When I plug the 60GB Hitachi drive into my computer, it shows up as:

/dev/sdd
/dev/sdd1
/dev/sdd2

But when I plug in the 120GB Toshiba drive, it doesn't show up in /dev at all. A dud, perhaps? Maybe there's hope for a 120GB Karma after all...

You won't, of course, get sdd1 or sdd2 until the drive is partitioned. But you should get the whole-disk device, sdd. Does anything get recorded in dmesg when you plug in the 120?

Peter

gomtuu 2009-01-15, 12:21 #20

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Quote by straycat:
have you tried to copy the 60gb partitions to the 120gb or maybe clone it (disk image bit-level copy)?

I was able to copy data from the 60GB drive, but I can't copy it onto the 120GB drive because my computer isn't seeing the 120GB drive. I would need /dev/sdd to show up in order to copy the image to it.

Quote by peter:
Does anything get recorded in dmesg when you plug in the 120?

Good question, I didn't check that. I'll have to try again when I get home.

flattop100 2009-01-15, 13:31 #21

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This might be a dumb question, but does the Karma support multiple partitions?

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peter 2009-01-15, 14:39 #22

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Quote by flattop100:
This might be a dumb question, but does the Karma support multiple partitions?

Karma always has just two partitions: one small, fixed one with things like the built-in web pages on, and one large one for music, taking up the rest of the disk. In theory you could make a third one if you wanted to hide stuff from the Karma firmware itself and from all existing transfer software, but it would get wiped out any time you reformatted the drive from the firmware upgrader (because that "reformat" actually forces a repartition too; it hoses any prior content of the drive).

Peter

gomtuu 2009-01-15, 16:36 #23

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Here's what gets logged when I turn the 120GB drive on:

[turned drive on]
Jan 15 17:55:05 werecar kernel: [ 584.888011] usb 8-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
Jan 15 17:55:06 werecar kernel: [ 585.022036] usb 8-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jan 15 17:55:06 werecar kernel: [ 585.022651] scsi9 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Jan 15 17:55:06 werecar kernel: [ 585.022918] usb-storage: device found at 5
Jan 15 17:55:06 werecar kernel: [ 585.022920] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.020227] usb-storage: device scan complete
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.021099] scsi 9:0:0:0: Direct-Access TOSHIBA MK1231GAL 1A PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.022207] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] 234441648 512-byte hardware sectors (120034 MB)
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.023082] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.023087] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.023090] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.025207] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] 234441648 512-byte hardware sectors (120034 MB)
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.026580] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.026584] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.026586] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.028015] sdd: sdd1 sdd2
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.061960] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.062160] sd 9:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.163200] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Sense Key : No Sense [current]
Jan 15 17:55:11 werecar kernel: [ 590.163207] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Add. Sense: No additional sense information
[previous 2 lines repeat many times per second]
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.615079] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Sense Key : No Sense [current]
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.615083] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Add. Sense: No additional sense information
[turned drive off]
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.736537] usb 8-1: USB disconnect, address 5
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.736575] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.736580] end_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 234441640
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.736584] __ratelimit: 56 callbacks suppressed
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.736587] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305205
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.736666] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.736669] end_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 234441640
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.736672] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305205
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.737885] scsi 9:0:0:0: [sdd] Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.737890] end_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 234441640
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.737893] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305205
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.738075] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305205
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.738088] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305205
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.738100] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305205
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.738111] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305205
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.738126] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305198
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.738138] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305204
Jan 15 17:55:15 werecar kernel: [ 594.738150] Buffer I/O error on device sdd, logical block 29305205

I've seen those "No sense" errors before. Just a few weeks ago, one of the drives in a RAID backup server I maintain started saying that. But it went away after I rebooted it... Not so for this drive.

peter 2009-01-16, 07:19 #24

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Quote by gomtuu:
[ 590.021099] scsi 9:0:0:0: Direct-Access TOSHIBA MK1231GAL 1A PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
[ 590.022207] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdd] 234441648 512-byte hardware sectors (120034 MB)

So it found the drive...

[ 590.028015] sdd: sdd1 sdd2

...which was already partitioned (maybe the firmware upgrader got this far before conking out)...

[ 594.736580] end_request: I/O error, dev sdd, sector 234441640

...then it went off into the weeds trying to read a sector near the very end of the drive.

Perhaps the next thing to try is a kernel without CONFIG_KARMA_PARTITION or CONFIG_OMFS_FS set (or with them modular and not loaded). That way there should be no reads from the device when initially inserted (except one or two of the first few sectors, to establish that there's no DOS or EFI partition table), and you should get /dev/sdd.

If there are errors in dmesg even with CONFIG_KARMA_PARTITION=n, do post them, but I suspect that that would mean a faulty drive. Depending on your adapter, you might be able to use hdparm and/or smartctl on /dev/sdd to give extra information about the drive; post that too. (Use the newest hdparm you can find; there seems to be a version 9.8 now.)

If /dev/sdd comes up fully working with CONFIG_KARMA_PARTITION=n, the next thing to try is dd'ing /dev/zero onto the whole thing, and looking for errors in dmesg. Or proceeding straight to dd'ing the image of the 60Gb drive onto it.

Peter

gomtuu 2009-01-16, 11:09 #25

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Thanks for your help with this, peter!

I booted an Ubuntu 7.10 LiveCD because it was the oldest bootable Linux I had handy. This time, when I watched the log (tail -f /dev/kern.log), I found that it still recognized the two partitions, but instead of repeating the "No sense" errors indefinitely, it stopped repeating after a second or so. Also, sdd, sdd1, and sdd2 showed up in /dev, and turning the drive off didn't cause that end_request I/O error.

I used xxd on /dev/sdd to look at the partition table, and it didn't look right. Then I zeroed it out and power-cycled the drive. This time, the log said "unknown partition table", only sdd appeared in /dev, and there were no "No sense" errors at all. So far so good. Then I used dd to copy the first 84MB of the 60GB image onto it (I figured 84MB was enough to get the partition table plus the first partition, which is 64MB). I power-cycled the drive again, and it acted like before, with the "No sense" errors that repeat for about a second. I put the drive into my Karma, and it didn't work. Same as before.

I hooked the drive back up to my computer and used fdisk to create a Linux partition, then mke2fs to format it ext3. I power-cycled it again, and it did the same exact thing.

Then, I booted back into Ubuntu 8.10 and tried turning on the drive. Same behavior as before: "No sense" errors that repeat until I turn the drive off, and then the end_request I/O error at sector 234441640. No sdd* in /dev either.

I didn't get a chance to try hdparm or smartctl, but I don't think I can use smartctl because I'm hooking the drive up through a USB adapter.

gomtuu 2009-01-17, 19:49 #26

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hdparm 7.5 (the version that comes with Ubuntu 7.10) just says this:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo hdparm --verbose /dev/sdd

/dev/sdd:
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 14593/255/63, sectors = 234441648, start = 0

I skimmed the man page, but there are a lot of options and most of them didn't seem to apply. Was there something specific you had in mind?

smartctl says the device doesn't support SMART. I think that's because it's plugged in via USB.

badblocks and badblocks -w both completed without errors (printed or logged).

I still suspect the hard drive is bad, though it's weird that it seems to work fine in Ubuntu 7.10...

peter 2009-01-18, 06:37 #27

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Quote by gomtuu:
I still suspect the hard drive is bad, though it's weird that it seems to work fine in Ubuntu 7.10.

I was wondering whether hdparm would say that HPA was enabled, which would account for weirdness in drive sizing, but that was a bit of a long shot. As you say, it doesn't look like your USB adapter allows us to find out anyway.

I hooked the drive back up to my computer and used fdisk to create a Linux partition, then mke2fs to format it ext3. I power-cycled it again, and it did the same exact thing.

Sorry, I got lost there. Do you mean you zeroed out the first sector, used fdisk to remove all existing partitions and make a DOS partition table with a single entry, formatted that partition as ext3, and it then didn't work with Ubuntu 7.10, or did? And you're saying that doing this didn't work on Ubunto 8.10? It's very weird that a drive that passes "badblocks -w" doesn't work as a straightforward ext3 drive when all Karma-ness and OMFS-ness is removed from the equation.

How sure are we that fdisk removes all weirdness from sector 0 if you don't dd it to zero first?

Peter

gomtuu 2009-01-18, 07:53 #28

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Yeah, I'm pretty sure I zeroed it out again before I used fdisk.

After I created the Linux partition in fdisk and fomatted it ext3, it did work in 7.10. (I don't think I actually tried putting files on it, but sdd1 showed up in /dev and mke2fs seemed to work.) But sdd and sdd1 didn't show up in Ubuntu 8.10.

And I've since tried using the drive in Ubuntu 8.10 with no partition table at all (I checked it after badblocks -w was done and it was zeroed out) and it still didn't work. To summarize (I wish I could present this as a table, but I don't think this forum's markup supports tables):

Ubuntu 7.10; partition table created by Firmware Updater; sdd, sdd1, and sdd2 in /dev; 1 sec. of "No sense" errors
Ubuntu 7.10; partition table zeroed out; sdd in /dev; no "No sense" errors
Ubuntu 7.10; partition table copied from 60GB drive; sdd, sdd1, and sdd2 in /dev; 1 sec. of "No sense" errors
Ubuntu 7.10; partition table created by fdisk; sdd and sdd1 in /dev; 1 sec. of "No sense" errors

Ubuntu 8.10; partition table created by Firmware Updater; no sdd* in /dev; indefinitely repeating "No sense" errors
Ubuntu 8.10; partition table zeroed out; no sdd* in /dev; indefinitely repeating "No sense" errors
Ubuntu 8.10; partition table created by fdisk; no sdd* in /dev; indefinitely repeating "No sense" errors

And under no circumstances has it ever worked in the Karma, except that the Karma can see its model number in Recovery Mode.

The 60GB Hitachi ZIF drive that came with the Lenovo thing works the way you'd expect a hard drive to work: I've never seen it cause "No sense" errors, its partitions show up in /dev in Ubuntu 8.10, and it works in the Karma.

The only explanation I can think of is that there's a problem with the 120GB drive that's fairly subtle, and Ubuntu 7.10's hardware drivers don't care (that's why the "No sense" errors stop after a second or so; it just gives up), but Ubuntu 8.10 and the Karma do care, so they don't work.

This post was edited on 2009-01-18, 08:06 by gomtuu.

peter 2009-01-18, 11:29 #29

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Quote by gomtuu:
Ubuntu 8.10; partition table zeroed out; no sdd* in /dev; indefinitely repeating "No sense" errors
[...]
The only explanation I can think of is that there's a problem with the 120GB drive that's fairly subtle, and Ubuntu 7.10's hardware drivers don't care (that's why the "No sense" errors stop after a second or so; it just gives up), but Ubuntu 8.10 and the Karma do care, so they don't work.

Agreed. I think that a faulty drive is the only thing that would make sense here.

Peter

gomtuu 2009-01-18, 12:24 #30

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More evidence: When I boot to Windows XP and plug in the Toshiba drive (with partition table blank), it appears in the Device Manager as "TOSHIBA MK1231GAL USB Device", but no corresponding disk shows up in Disk Management. However, when I plug in the Hitachi drive (with Karma partition table), it shows up in Disk Management as an uninitialized disk, and I can partition and format it.

This post was edited on 2009-01-18, 12:32 by gomtuu.