Questions about hard disks performance, issues, tips, and related software, e.g. data recovery or disk test software.
0
votes
0answers
10 views
Laptop harddisk not recognized after boot [migrated]
I have HP dv6600 laptop. Its windows crashed recently. After that I tried to restore a backup image created by self-image. But unfortunately backup file was corrupted and C: partition was rendered ...
2
votes
1answer
72 views
Why would my servers be losing partition tables?
Over three consecutive days, three of our servers have lost their partition tables. Two of the machines were running linux and the third was a windows machine and all of these servers are on an ...
3
votes
2answers
55 views
Recover a deleted partition by mistake (FAT32)
I deleted by mistake a FAT32 (I think it was fat32) partition in a external drive, searching I got through this post: ...
0
votes
3answers
88 views
Performance gains of putting Windows pagefile on separate partition (same disk)?
I am making a drive image that will be deployed to several computers, and I'm tweaking it for performance. It is a Windows XP image.
Considering there is only one hard drive, will the machine gain ...
0
votes
0answers
22 views
How do I reset the factory capacity of harddisks on win7 or ubuntu [migrated]
I have a 3TB Hitachi HD () which progressively 'lost' displayed capacity to currently just above 740 GB.
Explorer, Installation-DVD and harddisk manager (win7) all agree on this size @ 1.5 billion ...
1
vote
1answer
53 views
Files disappeared from server, old ones shown instead
Recently I ran into a very strange phenomenon with one of the servers I manage used to serve samba shares over the local network. It was running Ubuntu Server 8.04 and I decided to upgrade the ...
1
vote
3answers
96 views
Can cloning a hard disk drive to a SSD drive physically damage the SSD or the performance of the SSD?
I have a new SSD drive, I want to use it to replace the old mechanical hard disk drive in a laptop.
The laptop had a new O/S (Windows 7 64-bit) installed about 9 months ago and I want to know if it's ...
0
votes
1answer
31 views
Hard disk read error
I have some old (8 years) hdd, Maxtor 40Gb (i think that full model number is not important here). Suddenly, i can't read some files from it. Using chkdsk, after LONG scan i realised i have some 380 ...
1
vote
1answer
26 views
Access hard drive with Bitlocker in external machine without recovery key
On a Windows 7 laptop with Bitlocker enabled, is it possible to access the data on the hard drive in another way if the installation becomes corrupted? Normally, I just enter the PIN when I start the ...
1
vote
12answers
463 views
What is the best approach to wiping all data off a HDD instantly? [closed]
Just wondering in case something happens and I need to wipe all my data right away. I don't care if the drive is unusable after wipe.
9
votes
4answers
348 views
What effects do magnets have on HDDs and SSDs? [closed]
What do magnets do to hard disk drives and solid state drives upon contact?
0
votes
1answer
90 views
Adding a second hard drive but how do I move virtuals on 2nd hard drive
I am using VMWare Workstation 8.x. and I have 2 virtuals running under this. Now, these are on my current c: which is 54rpm very slow hard drive. and therefore VMs are really really slow as I/O is bad ...
1
vote
1answer
115 views
1TB Seagate Barracuda ST31000528AS - Unexpected “Offline uncorrectable sectors”
I bought a 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 - ST31000528AS drive about 18 months ago because it had a 5-year warranty, and used it alongside a Samsung Spinpoint under Ubuntu Server as one half of a ...
0
votes
0answers
34 views
Optiplex 755 hangs when AHCI mode selected [migrated]
I can’t get AHCI mode to work on a Dell Optiplex 755. I’ve installed the drivers, but when rebooted in „RAID Autodetect/AHCI” mode, the system hangs. No Windows logo, no BSOD, nothing. Only a blinking ...
3
votes
2answers
154 views
Predictive failure on hot swappable drive
on a HP PROLIANT ML350 G5 server, one of 3 physical hot swappable drives in a Smart Array has a status of Predictive Failure and the amber light is flashing. Each drive is 146GB. In HP System ...
0
votes
5answers
172 views
What are the more reliable SSDs to use in an enterprise environment?
We all know SSDs are fast... but aren't all that great when it comes to any computer that writes to disk many times in any given minute.
Are there any SSDs that are suited for an enterprise ...
2
votes
3answers
139 views
Large disk queue length
A few days ago disk on my server started to have large queue length:
I've changed controller battary recently, HP configuration utility was saying the battery is bad, but after changing the battery ...
1
vote
4answers
83 views
Server is giving me a SMART Failure Predicted
I have an older xSeries 306 that has started giving me a SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 2: SATA Port 0 message, a warning about backing up, and a message to Press F1 to continue. It's my ...
1
vote
1answer
72 views
CentOS Adding Hard Disks
I currently have a server with 500GB storage (2 physical disks, raid 0) and its already full. I've asked my provider for an upgrade of additional 1TB storage (2 physical, raid 0). These are all ...
16
votes
3answers
405 views
Replacing Hard Drives [closed]
I was wondering if it is a good idea to replace a hard drive in a (fairly) system-critical database server after a certain number of years of use, before it dies.
For example, I was thinking of ...
0
votes
1answer
87 views
Converter to use Sata HDD with IBM eserver x236
We have an old x236 machine with 2 70-GB SCSI disks installed on Ultra320 SCSI connector (check out the hardware manual). Now, we are planning to buy a new server in future and x326 would act as a ...
0
votes
3answers
61 views
How to calculate the starting address of a partition from MBR
Given a MBR and the structure of MBR/partition table, how can you calculate the size and starting address of each partition?
For clarification let's say I was given this-
Answer: There are ...
2
votes
0answers
62 views
Windows Backup Server & TrueCrypt Volume
I have a number of USB-powered external hard drives I was going to use for server backups for my Windows 2008 server.
I tested Windows Server Backup, and it seemed to back up fine. However, since I'm ...
4
votes
5answers
271 views
If you don't need to cram more disks in the same space, do 2.5“ hdd have any advantage over 3.5”?
Nowadays many server systems use 2.5" hard disks, afaik because they can put more spindles in the same chassis and maybe they use less power. When I don't need / cannot put more disks, is there any ...
0
votes
3answers
100 views
Does this hard disk drive support hardware-based full disk encryption? What are some effective interrogation tactics?
I am trying to determine if a particular hard disk drive supports hardware-based full disk encryption. I know I can use the model number and check the manufacturer's website, but that is only feasible ...
3
votes
2answers
124 views
Move /var to new set of disks
I currently only have remote access to this CentOS box, I need to move /var form the primary RAID to a new set of disks that was installed with more space, My current thoughts on how to accomplish ...
0
votes
2answers
51 views
Will a failed WD external hard drive deteriorate further by sitting around? [closed]
Sorry if this is not the right place to ask this - if anyone knows a better place kindly direct me.
My external hard drive is already failed: it spins up, my machine tries for 20-30 seconds to ...
2
votes
2answers
68 views
run and track SMART tests of harddisks
At our shop we have nagios checks for the SMART status of hard disks in linux servers, but it hasn't been really useful so far: by the time we get a SMART alarm the system already had problems so we ...
4
votes
1answer
300 views
Web site kills hard disk I/O, how to prevent?
The situation: I have a server, on which we have 2-3 projects. Starting not long ago, the server started hanging up (We could not connect to it by ssh, and the connected clients had to wait 20 minutes ...
1
vote
1answer
44 views
How can I find out where GRUB was installed?
I need to find where GRUB was installed, for example, which drive/partition. Is it possible to figure out where it was installed?
-1
votes
2answers
34 views
Why can Windows startup begin if hard drive has serious errors? [closed]
On my computer, Windows can begin startup (giving me a the option to press F8 to select safe mode) before blue screening and restarting. If I boot from an external Ultimate Boot CD, I can't read the ...
30
votes
3answers
706 views
What are the different widely used RAID levels and when should I consider them?
This is a Canonical Question about RAID levels, since there isn't a single definitive one.
What are:
the RAID levels typically used (including the RAID-Z family)?
deployments are they ...
2
votes
2answers
115 views
I used “dd” to clone a drive to a larger drive. How can I leverage the additional space (linux)?
Fdisk can't see extra space
I upgraded my trusty 74gb Raptor hard drive to a 600gb Velociraptor behemoth.
I used "dd" to clone the drive, (i.e. "dd if=old-drive-device of="new-drive-device), swapped ...
0
votes
0answers
34 views
Running dd from Ubuntu live, it goes to sleep
I needed to clone a hard drive, so I bought the exact same model that I have and stuck it into the computer. I put Ubuntu live on a flash drive and boot up from it. I check with sudo fdisk -l that I ...
0
votes
2answers
44 views
Windows Server making hard disk accessible after moving to a new installation
I have a serial ata disk running windows server 2003 in an old setup and now our company wanted to upgrade the system. We got a new computer and I transfer the hard disk from one setup to the other. ...
0
votes
1answer
85 views
Disk warning 51 on Windows 2008 x64 Standard R1
I keep getting a disk warning 51 message in the system log every few months. It eventually causes the server to crash (killing all my network services), forcing me to do a hard reboot.
Full error ...
0
votes
1answer
79 views
Linux - Test the write speed of an NTFS HDD USB drive
I have a Debian box with an USB HDD drive formated in NTFS connected to it. I would like to test the write speed of it because with samba, when I upload files to it from my Windows 7 laptop, I got ...
-1
votes
2answers
146 views
If consumer grade hard drives and parts are so bad, how does Backblaze do it? [closed]
In case you don't know, Backblaze is somewhat famous for making custom ginormous boxes of disks made entirely out of consumer grade parts for their file hosting business. Their newest version holds ...
-1
votes
2answers
160 views
Is it possible to recover a Hard-disk even after formatting and rewriting all space with new data?
Some coworkers and I are discussing about Hard-disk recovery and one of my coworker said that is possible to recovery a HD even after formatting and rewrite all your space again.
The argument of my ...
0
votes
1answer
39 views
NAS Hard drive configuration advice?
Just got a 4 bay NAS.
I want to set it up as optimal as possible.
I was thinking of getting 3 x 1TB hard drives and setting up as RAID 5.
The disk usage will probably be around 1TB max but there is ...
-1
votes
4answers
72 views
Recover Formatted My Book data? [closed]
I have a 1 Terra My Book Western Digital external hard disk ... Its USB socket got broken so I kept connecting and disconnecting it several times to make it work ... sometimes it worked and other ...
1
vote
3answers
173 views
How to repair the fstab file with current configuration
I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 and i accidently removed all the entries from the fstab files while doing a backup (Yeah, I know ;)).
I would like to know if there is a way to rebuild it with the current ...
-1
votes
2answers
122 views
How to get email alert when windows server 2003 runs out of memory space?
We have a server where multiple web application are hosted. Users will upload files to the website that will get saved to server HD. Now and then, C: is running out of space because of the uploaded ...
0
votes
2answers
110 views
Rule of thumb: SATA for storage & serving static content, SSD/SAS for databases?
The question says it all. But, is it true? Can someone explain what's the differentiating factor here (how one type of disk is better than another for a specific purpose)?
(FYI, I've tried searching, ...
0
votes
2answers
144 views
Decreasing Root Disk Size of an “EBS Boot” AMI on EC2
So I have followed Eric's wonderful article here: http://alestic.com/2009/12/ec2-ebs-boot-resize
This was the code basically that helped me increase the default size of the AMI:
ec2-run-sintances ...
-1
votes
1answer
45 views
How does this benchmark calculation work?
I am testing disk I/O performance on a server of mine, which will eventually run Postgresql. I am following this web site to perform my benchmarks.
The benchmark consists of running dd and ...
0
votes
1answer
47 views
Certain drives in RAID 5 set intermittently are not recognized
I have a curious problem in that 1 (sometimes 2) drives do not get recognized in a RAID 5 set. The server is getting rather old at 5 to 6 years, but still seems to function well once the machine sees ...
4
votes
1answer
78 views
Survive a Software Audit
I received a letter from Autodesk asking for a "License Assessment". I understand it as a software audit. They plan to do it remotely.
The thing is, I'm a freelancer, I don't use any Software Asset ...
2
votes
2answers
151 views
Is this hard disk dead?
Not sure, is this right site for this Q, but let me try
Last time i have problem with hard disk.
Sometimes its do strange sound, and i get it from logs:
$dmesg | grep ata4
[29409.945516] ata4.00: ...
1
vote
2answers
49 views
Monitoring disk: Logical of Physical?
I'm beginning to monitor our servers disks and was wondering what would be the best option as to gathering statistics on % Disk Time, Disk Transfers/sec etc.
I can monitor both but my research didn't ...
