[Tfug] Check file system and restore array

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Timothy,

On 2/11/2013 1:34 PM, Timothy D. Lenz wrote:
> I'll have to check what exactly it says it says next time I have it up.
> thought I would be working on it today with the rains moving about

Never complain about rain in Tucson!  :>

> because my outside project is welding a cat cage. But turns out I have
> to do some running about.

Be thankful -- we spent the night in the ER.  <frown>

> I dug through my drives and found 3 WD 40Gb IDE's. I used them before on
> an older version of this system. I'm thinking I will pull the sata's for
> now, put the IDE's in and install linux fresh with raid. That way raid

Of course, this is yet another change to the "failing" configuration
so adds yet another variable.  Any reason not to use the SATA drives
from your father's machine -- and the same software configuration?

[I.e., if your goal is to diagnose the "cause" of the original problem,
more changes make this harder to do.  OTOH, if your goal is just to
get the box back running...]

> is set up with a stock kernel instead of needed a custom built with raid

Why are you using RAID?  (this is a DVR, right?)  Is the "content"
that "precious"?  (I don't think you would need it for bandwidth
reasons)

> modules compiled in. It also gets linux updated and maybe cleans up any
> other stuff that may have creeped in by just updating. Then I'll try to
> grab the programs and config files, etc. from the sata drives, and try
> to move any stored data from the sda/b pair to the sdc/d pair. Then

If the drives have a "write inhibit" strap, you might consider
installing that and mounting them R/O -- just in case there is
something wonky in the software and/or system hardware.  I lost
the *contents* of a disk to a driver bug in an early FreeBSD
release many years ago (and then promptly lost the contents of
a *second*, identical disk by repeating that same exercise!  :< )

[This is all predicated on the idea that you actually *want*
to preserve/recover the contents of those drives]

> reformat the sda/b pair and switch to ext4 at the same time. currently
> using ext3 and from what I've heard, ext4 would be better because of thr
> large files with recordings. I will continue to have vdr break
> recordings into 2Gb files because it's handy for moving them around. Not
> sure if I should keep the boot/os partition in ext3 or move it to 4 as
> well. Sometimes newer file systems are not as good on smaller partitions
> with small files and the boot will be around 40Gb. Looks like my DVR
> will be down awhile.
>
> The power supply I had used was a Cooler Master 550w. Not top of the
> line, but didn't seem to have any bad reports. The replacement is an

Things fail.  As I mentioned before, even picking top shelf
components doesn't give you immunity from that.  Only *you*
know what sort of use/abuse it was subjected to and what to
expect from it (longevity).

I was just suggesting checking the power supply (is it *really*
bad?  *Dead*?  Or, just having problems at high loads?  Has the
load presented by the original system changed so that the PS
is now stressed to handle it?  I.e., some sense of confirmation
as to *why* the PS died -- and what that does or doesn't mean
for the rest of the system.

[I love things that are definitely broken as you have nothing to
lose when poking around "inside" to identify the failure *mode*...
bad cap, open switch, cold solder joint on an inductor, etc.
You don't have to worry about putting it all back together when
you are done!  :> ]

> antec. The first 2 seagate drives came from Newegg and the second set
> cam from Elliots. The first drive to fail was one of the Newegg drives,
> but after that I don't know which from where. I did find out after the
> first drive went down that the seagate 500Gb drives had a real high
> failure rate that was latter fixed with a firmware update. The failures
> tended to happen after a power down/up. So very likely the drives where
> from batches with old firmware. I dealt directly with seagate on all the
> returns, so they should have the fix.

Again, the drives might not really be toast!  There is a surprising
number of "dead" drives that actually are NDF (no defect found).
Like replacing a car battery when the problem is actually in the
alternator!  :-(

Time for a nap.  I am currently severely sleep deprived  :<