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Looks like my USB HDD is old and corrupted:

rsync: read errors mapping "path/to/file.jpg": Input/output error (5)

Syslog:

kernel: [58927.940676] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled sense code
kernel: [58927.940683] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb]  Result: hostbyte=invalid driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
kernel: [58927.940690] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb]  Sense Key : Medium Error [current] 
kernel: [58927.940696] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb]  Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
kernel: [58927.940703] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 21 f2 df 00 00 08 00
kernel: [58927.940716] end_request: critical target error, dev sdb, sector 2224863

The strange thing is that FS is not spoilt: I can list all directories. However, reading the contents of about 10% files gives these errors. Adiitionally, most of small files are safe, however, large files are all spoilt (corruption threshold is ~5MB).

How can it be? What options do I have to investigate & rescue the files? Can it be a driver issue? I can't believe that HDD damage could miss the FS metadata!

P.S. this HDD is perfidious: I have always been doing backups, and it waited for the right moment to betray :-D

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I'm sure you'd get more answers if you added a hat to your Gravatar. meta.serverfault.com/questions/2394/its-santa-time – Ward Dec 17 '11 at 20:58
THE RESULT: ddrescue did the job, managed to minimize the number of errors – o_O Tync Dec 29 '11 at 20:51
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1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Listing the directories does not mean that the filesystem is ok, you're just viewing metadata (which is a small percent of a filesystem).

  1. Create a backup of everything you can
  2. Run a filesystem check (fsck)
  3. Create another backup (in case fsck managed to save some more files)
  4. Replace the disk
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True. However, I can't believe such massive "damage" (whatever) could miss the metadata :) Already trying your suggestion, 10x! – o_O Tync Dec 17 '11 at 18:52
Metadata isn't spread out over the file system, it's a reserved place on the disk (I can't remember where right now) – pauska Dec 17 '11 at 19:07
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I have no idea what you wrote, but I like your hat. – WesleyDavid Dec 18 '11 at 1:21
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