From: fred@poly2.nist.gov (Frederick R. Phelan Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Hard Disk Problem
Date: 26 Aug 92 12:26:12 GMT


This one is already logged with the TAC but I thought I'd
post and see if there is any net wisdom ...

PROBLEM(S!):
Since sunday we are getting the following messages in SYSLOG
on one of our machines:

Aug 26 05:00:04 poly1 unix: ips0d0s6 (/usr): uncorrectable error (code 23) chs=179/9/46  ...about to do first retry
Aug 26 05:00:12 poly1 unix: ips0d0s6 (/usr): uncorrectable error (code 23) chs=179/9/46  ...about to do second retry
Aug 26 05:00:12 poly1 unix: ips0d0s6 (/usr): uncorrectable error (code 23) chs=179/9/46  ...about to do third retry
Aug 26 05:00:12 poly1 unix: ips0d0s6 (/usr): uncorrectable error (code 23) chs=179/9/46  ...FATAL


And if (for example) you do a listing of /usr/lib/X11, you get:

fred@poly1:/usr/people/fred|11>dir /usr/lib/X11/
/usr/lib/X11/rgb.dir: I/O error
/usr/lib/X11/rgb.pag: I/O error
/usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt: I/O error
/usr/lib/X11/system.4Dwmrc: I/O error
/usr/lib/X11/system.chestrc: I/O error
/usr/lib/X11/twm: I/O error
/usr/lib/X11/xcalendar.hlp: I/O error
/usr/lib/X11/xfig: I/O error
/usr/lib/X11/xman.help: I/O error
total 34
  17 -r--r--r--   1 root     sys         8197 Jun 29 11:05 XErrorDB
   2 -r--r--r--   1 root     sys          644 Jun 29 10:42 XKeysymDB
   1 -rw-r--r--   1 root     sys          375 Aug 20  1990 Xresources
   1 drwxr-xr-x   5 root     sys          512 Jun 29 11:46 app-defaults/
   1 drwxr-xr-x   2 root     sys          512 Jun 29 11:54 config/
   1 drwxr-xr-x   2 root     sys          512 Jun 29 11:05 dyDDX/
   1 drwxr-xr-x   5 root     sys          512 Jan 29  1990 fonts/
   1 -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     sys          105 Aug 17  1990 site.xinitrc*
   3 -r--r--r--   1 root     sys         1142 Jun 29 10:42 system.motifbind
   5 -r--r--r--   1 root     sys         2480 Jun 29 10:42 system.mwmrc
   1 drwxr-xr-x   2 root     sys          512 Aug 25 12:39 xdm/


Also, since yesterday afternoon, the console no longer displays
pandora, but instead, the backrgound is grey, the login
box is white and says, Welcome to the X Window System.
When you do log in, you only get a borderless xterm ...
there is not even a pop-up menu for the root window
to log out ... the Xsgi that is running has the parameters:

fred@poly1:/usr/people/fred|13>ps -ef| grep Xsgi
root   268   258  0 12:39:15 ?         0:03 /usr/bin/X11/Xsgi -gamma 1.700000 :0 -auth /usr/lib/X11/xdm/A:0-a00258 

OTHER INFO:

fred@poly1:/usr/people/fred|14>hinv
1 16 MHZ IP4 Processor
FPU: MIPS R2010A/R3010 VLSI Floating Point Chip Revision: 1.5
CPU: MIPS R2000A/R3000 Processor Chip Revision: 1.6
On-board serial ports: 4
Data cache size: 32 Kbytes
Instruction cache size: 64 Kbytes
Main memory size: 16 Mbytes
ENP-10 Ethernet controller: enp0, firmware version 4 (SGI)
GT Graphics option installed
Genlock option installed
Interphase 4201 4-drive ESDI disk controller 0: Firmware Revision 050
ESDI Disk drive: unit 0 on Interphase controller 0
Tape drive: unit 7 on SCSI controller 0: QIC 150
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version WD33C93



DIAGNOSIS (from TAC): Hard disk is going ...

CURE (from TAC): Get a new hard disk ...

MAJOR PROBLEM: The system manager for that machine
did not do a backup of the system since installing
4.0.1, and there have been major changes and fixes
(e.g., Mail).  He is on vacation as well.  If we do
a backup of the entire system now, it will be corrupt
(I think) since we get I/O errors doing even a simple
ls command.

QUESTION: How can the changes that have been made best
          be preserved?    

I can think of two strategies:

(1) Back up the entire system, and then reinstall 4.0.1 after
    dumping the backup tape onto the new disk.

(2) Do a selective backup now, of things like 
/etc/ , /usr/etc/, /usr/local, /usr/people,
/usr/catman/local, /usr/"installed software",
install the operating system on the new
disk, and then dump this selective backup.
Note that I am trying to preserve our mail, nfs,
and telnet configs, as well as our and lpr setup
by grabbing /etc/ and /usr/etc ...


Any suggestions or comments (non-derisive, we have
enough problems :-) would be appreciated.

I am also wondering if there is a way to save the
present disk.

Fred Phelan
---
Fred Phelan
fred@poly2.nist.gov
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