*BSD News Article 65310


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From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: HELP: Recovering from hard disk failure...
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 1996 20:58:39 -0700
Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <316B31EF.15FB7483@FreeBSD.org>
References: <np3f6d5mtd.fsf@enci.ucalgary.ca>
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To: Gord Matzigkeit <gord@enci.ucalgary.ca>

Gord Matzigkeit wrote:
> So, what can I do?  I really, really want to mount my /usr partition,
> so that I can recover what I was working on.  But, FreeBSD won't let
> me use it after I mount... it keeps making a grinding noise (retry, I
> presume), and `ls', or whatever other program I ran, exits with "I/O
> error".

Yikes.  See below.

> Am I royally screwed?  What is the best way for me to recover as much

Yes, it sounds like.  Truly, if your HD is making noises like this then
I'd say it's crashed and it's only by the grace of some deity that
you're able to read any part of it at all.  Get out the backups or, if
you have no backups, get out your favorite religious tome and start
reading it for spiritual support.  Backups are really a good idea, no
kidding, and of great assistance at times like this.  Your data is
toast!

> The MS-DOG part of the disk isn't owned by me... fortunately it isn't
> affected, or I'd be in really deep doodoo.  I have the BIOS geometry
> set so that MS-DOG can only access (and inhabit) the first 280MB of
> the disk.  I suspect that changing the geometry info would be A Very
> Bad Thing(tm).

I'd back up that DOS stuff too before the drive fails entirely.
-- 
- Jordan Hubbard
  President, FreeBSD Project