Corrupted HDA5-Second time in 6 months

[The_Dadu]

I don't often reboot this laptop; it generally doesn't seem to need it very often.  But I do reboot about once-twice a month.  This is a fairly new 160gb drive (two years old) on an Aspire 9500 series laptop (smaller drive initially).  I'm running PCLOS 2009.2 KDE3 as the sole OS.  The only symptom I can report is that the boot aborts into a request for maintenance after a forced check, about 9.5% into the process and it is consistently at that point.  I'm sending this from the same machine, booted with a usb drive with an installed copy of PCLOS 2009.1.
Most of my data is backed up on an external drive, so that isn't an issue. But one other symptom, I can't copy off my WinXP VirtualBox HD; it dies 2.3 gig into a 2.6gig file.
I don't expect you to diagnose a solution from this meager info; I will need to reinstall at some point. But, what do you recommend to reduce the likelihood of this happening again? Should I attempt a low-level format (if so, what software)? Is a new high-level format from either the PCLOS installer sufficient, or should I use a different tool? Is my pattern of only rebooting 1-2/month sufficient? And one last question; is it worthwhile to attempt to upgrade to the existing KDE4.3 now or just wait until the PCLOS2010 comes out?

[T6]

try to copy all the files after you complete a fsck on that partition/hard disk

after this you could try cleaning the hard disk with a low level format tool provided by the manufacturer, possibly samsung, if you know the brand of the hard disk, visit their website, these tools provided by the manufacturer will also diagnose physical errors on the hard disk and other details

if the tool reports errors, time to replace the hard disk, if not, just format it again with ext3 or ext4

for low level format you can also use dban  http://www.dban.org/

if you see repeated errors after all this steps the error could involve problems in the hard disk controller or mechanical failures and that is a reason to change the hard disk

"Is a new high-level format from either the PCLOS installer sufficient, or should I use a different tool?"

on linux i always used the tool that comes with the distro, after almost 4 years on pclinux and other 2 years with mandriva i can say that the tool used here is perfect for my requirements

about rebooting, is the machine always on? if that is the case, not much people leave a laptop on that long time but shouldn't be a problem afik if you do it correctly(by asking it to reboot and not doing a hard reboot)

"And one last question; is it worthwhile to attempt to upgrade to the existing KDE4.3 now or just wait until the PCLOS2010 comes out?"

i did it last october, all ok here but pclinux 2010 with kde4.4 is the future here, literally, you will need to format your installation and use the new version

no update path exist to avoid broken installations so you could consider to wait 1 - 2 months or try the new desktop but sounds more easy to you the wait option isn't?

[The_Dadu]

Thanks for the rapid response. I don't move this laptop around, it is my house-mainfloor machine because my desktop is upstairs and it hurts to walk stairs these days.  I do have to put it away when my wife decides to have company, so the laptop format is handy.  I'll try the fsck on the machine and look for the brand marking on the drive to find the appropriate software for a low-level format, thanks for the dban reference.  I think the drive is a Toshiba, but I'm not sure.

[ThirdOfSix]

The_Dadu,

I would strongly recommend that you install and run "gsmartcontrol" from the repository.

It will show if your hard drive is slowly failing.

I know that you said that it was fairly new. But, the thing about the S.M.A.R.T system in the newer drives it that it will mask flaws from the user until things reach the point that the drive can no longer compensate.

It is possible to buy a new drive that is very marginal in quality that can run for some time before symptoms appear.

[Duvid]

One thing that pops into my mind, laptops always run hotter than desktops even with power down utilities and cooling devices I still prefer to power down my laptop if I don't plan on using it for awhile. Overheating can compromise the hard drive fairly easily as well. Also most people don't realize that dust, pet hair and lint get sucked into the laptop and can be cleaned quite easily to keep their laptop cooler.

[pags]

You could consider an inexpensive laptop cooler (eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laptop_cooler).  I've used one extensively on an old toshiba with memory upgraded to 1 Gig (specs state it only supports 512 Meg  ) and a 100 GB HDD replacing the stock 20.  This caused this already warm laptop to run HOT!.  The cooler has made a world of difference (it get used extensively on a couch, so the heat builds up on covers and legs  ).

[The_Dadu]

Turns out the drive is an Hitachi and I was able to download testing software from their site.  Part of the interesting result was it passed the 'quick' test with no errors but had bad sectors in the 'advanced' test. I didn't 'fix' it yet.
Thanks for the additional ideas.
Alan

[T6]

to fix the errors it requires to write to the hard disk so be careful, you could loose files or the whole partition

i would say that it is time to replace the hard disk but first try with that tool to see if the tool can do something really

after that you can run dban too, it will vanish the partition if the hitachi tool doesn't do it(sometimes is a logic error, a partition failing and not the hardware), completely clean hard disk

[j-retired]

A while back I bought a cheap adaptor to let me plug any laptop HD into a USB port. I can then dig through it without any worries, and transfer anything of interest to my desktop HD. You then have all the facilities of the desktop for recovering files etc. They are generally less than £20 and mine has certainly paid for itself!
I also agree about the statement by ThirdofSix about "S.M.A.R.T."  -  by the time you get a warning the drive's very nearly dead.... not so smart after all!

j

[T6]

i only can remember 2 situations where S.M.A.R.T. helped warning this way, in this situations smart is useless

but this tool also does hdd temp monitoring and other details i can't remember right now

[Duvid]

Is there any reason not to use gsoartcontrol on a laptop? I can't think of any, but rather throw it out there.