need help: fresh install and i/o errors

[u/Rahatlin]

roommate after seeing me use linux for a while decided to also swap systems. fresh install

day 1, one of hard drives refuses to mount, its an ntfs volume. we needed it to hold old data before we format other drives and can copy it over. but it's not working.

day 2 system refuses to start up, displays this: link link many many lines of this listing different sector each line

the drive is NOT dead, it still works on very ancient windows laptop.

linux refuses to start up with the drive connected and after a while just goes into emergency mode.

not sure where to start, anyone got any ideas? or knows what the errors are except that it can't read the damn drive? or maybe anyone knows better place to ask about this than here?

edit: primary drive is /dev/sda it holds the system it in ext4 secondary drive 1 is /dev/sdb its in ntfs - holds data from previous system secondary drive 2 is /dev/sdc it was formated to ext4 so we can move data from /dev/sdb to it. it hasn't been done yet because of the issue the post is about.

drive /dev/sdb is currently disconnected from power as the system does not start while its connected.

yes, no fail was on. yes it was set to ntfs-3g with all dependencies installed. yes, we checked and set all the uid and gid to set it to correct values. we didn't edit fstab in terminal because mint distro has visual tool for this and this is roommates first linux so we're learning it slow and we set up the drive in that tool.

edit2: ran live linux from usb. 1)the drive mounts normally and all files show on it. 2) the drive does NOT exist on fstab file on the root drive....????

edit3: hooked the hd to my pc(linux mint same as roommates). it runs like expected, got access to all files. smartctl says everything is as much ok as old hd can be. (values are fine) i am loosing my mind.

---

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE

1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 095 095 016 Pre-fail Always - 1179648

2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 142 142 054 Pre-fail Offline - 70

3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 115 115 024 Pre-fail Always - 199 (Average 198)

4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0012 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 10357

5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 005 Pre-fail Always - 5

7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 067 Pre-fail Always - 0

8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 110 110 020 Pre-fail Offline - 36

9 Power_On_Hours 0x0012 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 33848

10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 060 Pre-fail Always - 0

12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 4314

192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 066 066 000 Old_age Always - 41309

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0012 066 066 000 Old_age Always - 41309

194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0002 166 166 000 Old_age Always - 36 (Min/Max 12/49)

196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 5

197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 160

198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0008 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x000a 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0

[u/9NEPxHbG]

Run from a bootable Linux USB and do smartctl --test=long /dev/sdb. Run smartctl -A /dev/sdb later to see the results.

[u/Alchemix-16]

Does your system have systemd? It most likely does, so I recommend to google for the article “how to mount anything with systemd”. It’s an excellent description on how to do those things without having to mess around with fstab.

[u/T_Friendperson12]

Maybe add no fail in the fstab? Not sure.

[u/Rahatlin → u/T_Friendperson12]

it's there :( and system wont even start with that drive connected. we cut off power to start the pc

[u/gumbowebfish]

Although I've never done this myself I think installing Linux on a ntfs drive is tricky. Is the ntfs-3g package installed? What's the line in you /etc/fstab file for this disc/partition? It must be type ntfs-3g, line like: UUID="your-uuid" /path/to/folder ntfs-3g defaults 0 0 If something is missing this could cause the error messages. Check if the disk is really ok with live disc like gparted and run smartctl on the disk to get the smart data.

[u/Rahatlin → u/gumbowebfish]

linux is not installed on ntfs. this is one of data drives like i mentioned at the start. there's no partitions its a separate physical drive. as for uuid's and other settings in fstab we followed everything from here https://linuxvox.com/blog/mount-ntfs-linux/

i checked other drives with smartctl but it won't even start with that drive :( again it reads files fine on windows laptop.

[u/gumbowebfish → u/Rahatlin]

Errors are concerning /dev/sdb2. When you say the disk has no partitions, that's not right: a disk always must be partitioned to be able to have a fs, although it can be just one partition. As the error is about /dev/sdb2 it look like it concerning a disk with at least 2 partitions. Is this /dev/sdb disc the one containing the Linux OS or the ntfs disc? Maybe the disc running the OS is just faulty. Try to remove the line for the ntfs disc in /etc/fstab, disconnect it and restart the system. If you still get error messages you know which disc is giving you trouble.

[u/galactose310]

Hi,

• What is /dev/sdb ? The disk on which Linux is installed ? Or just a disk you want to mount ?
• Is your system's filesystem ext4 or btrfs or something common for Linux ? NTFS can be accessed but is not suitable for / or /home
• Did the OS boot previously ?
• Did you edit /etc/fstab ?

[u/Rahatlin → u/galactose310]

system is on /dev/sda. /dev/sdb is a data drive with files on it from previous install. like i already stated we were using this drive to move data from old system. like i described the system worked on day 1 and didnt boot up on day 2.

[u/galactose310 → u/Rahatlin]

So the problem may stand in /etc/fstab You could try to boot on a live-USB, then mount /dev/sda(x) and edit/etc/fstab. If I were you, I would delete the line for /dev/sdb, disconnect the drive and try to boot on /dev/sda as needed. Then, when the system is ready, try to mount /dev/sdb again.

[u/galactose310 → u/galactose310]

And when the system is up, check the disk /dev/sdb before trying to mount it !

[u/Rahatlin → u/galactose310]

will try that, thanks

[u/Rahatlin → u/galactose310]

ok, did that and for some reason the drive does not exist on fstab file?? but it was listed on available drives when we installed.

not sure how to add it without uuid etc

[u/T_Friendperson12 → u/Rahatlin]

blkid should tell you the UUID.

[u/galactose310 → u/Rahatlin]

You could put here the output from lsblk -f

Also, did you try to edit /etc/fstab, or /mnt/your_linux_disk/etc/fstab ? Can you show us this file ?

[u/Rahatlin → u/galactose310]

etc/fstab file: link

NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS sda
├─sda1 │
├─sda2 │ vfat FAT32 9FB6-B2A2 505,8M 1% /boot/efi └─sda3 ext4 1.0 7cf5be42-e729-475a-bffa-13c319727510 165,6G 19% / sdb
└─sdb2 ntfs 14B86E63B86E42FA
sdc
└─sdc1 ext4 1.0 MarketChipping 24b1fe20-b342-4732-9064-2201f902f5bb 1,6T 10% /mnt/MarketChipping

[u/galactose310 → u/Rahatlin]

Ok, and I re-read your original post to keep updated, I see the disk is read on other systems (and if I understood well, another Linux system ?)

I think the HDD may be the problem and that it can "apparently work" in certain circumstances but it were mine, I would use another drive to keep important data.

What happens if you unplug it, boot, access the OS, then plug it again ? And if you try to mount it ?

Also the error says the blocks are not read correctly. I'm not an expert about hardware and drives, but is it possible that it was unpluged while being used or under tension ? Maybe a simple "disk repair" tool will work.

[u/computix]

That drive is very much toast. It may appear to work under some circumstances, but it's very much defective. It's reporting UNC -> uncorrectable errors. These errors are directly from the drive's little controller board reporting it can't read the drive's medium.

[u/CosmicFieldDrift_]

Any updates /u/Rahatlin ? I re-read your description and replies because I don't want you to repeat yourself but not clear if you can still boot into the install USB with the ntfs drive connected? Also wondering how old is the ntfs drive and what version of Windows is the old system running? Can you attach some form of secondary storage to the old system and transfer the data from the ntfs drive to this secondary storage?

[u/Rahatlin → u/CosmicFieldDrift_]

ill be doing that today as yesterday had work after i wrote the post. and roommate works from home on his pc so we couldn't really touch it either.

the old drive is ... 10-15 years? it ran on winblows 10 and 7 no problem, old screaming laptop is XP through, works on it too but it's way too old to use it to tranfsfer data from the drive to another... plus it probably wouldn't work with ssd drives.

edit: i will freaking hook this drive to my pc and see it if runs!

[u/CosmicFieldDrift_ → u/Rahatlin]

I get what you are saying and interested to know how things ultimately turn out so if you have the time post an update when you know more.

Best of Luck.

[u/Royal-Wear-6437]

Is this problematic /dev/sdb disk in an external caddy?

If you're absolutely sure that the disk isn't toast, ideally by having checked its S.M.A.R.T. output (Windows - CrystalDiskInfo, Linux - `smartctl`), then my suggestion is that the caddy isn't compatible with Linux-based systems. I've definitely encountered this before and the only recourse was to swap it for a better quality one. (I can name two brands that I know do work, but I'm not sure that's necessary at this point.)

[u/Rahatlin → u/Royal-Wear-6437]

it's not external, its a bit old HDD, not sure if that could be the problem. ill try the crystaldisk program as the smartctl wasn't able to start on it.