On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 11:48 -0600, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > Reid Rivenburgh wrote: > > Hi. I bought an external USB hard drive last week and reformatted it > > as ext3. I can mount it and read/write files, but for some reason it > > periodically disconnects and reconnects. I would like to use it as > > permanent storage, hooked up to my computer all the time. I added a > > label to it and put a line in fstab to mount it. But I'm getting > > lines like these in my /var/log/messages: > > > > Feb 5 00:07:05 pigpen kernel: usb 1-7: USB disconnect, address 4 > > Feb 5 00:07:06 pigpen kernel: scsi 2:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to dead device > > Feb 5 00:07:06 pigpen kernel: EXT3-fs error (device sdd1): > > ext3_find_entry: reading directory #2 offset 0 > > Feb 5 00:07:06 pigpen kernel: scsi 2:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to dead device > > (and more...) > > > > It's then quickly found again, though assigned sde1 in this case and > > of course not automatically mounted. I'm assuming the filesystem also > > requires an e2fsck because it was disconnected. > > > Because it is mounted ext3, it may recover all by itself, but > running e2fsck on it will not hurt. > > > Does anyone know what might be causing this? Is it likely a hardware > > issue? I have another external drive that I've been using without > > problems for about a year, but it's firewire. Previously, I was using > > both drives with autofs, but the new drive had some problems with that > > approach, too. (Now that I've learned about filesystem labels, that > > seems like the way to go anyway.) > > > > I'm running F8 with all updates (kernel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8). > > > > Thanks, > > reid > > > Does this drive have its own power supply, or is it powered off the > USB bus? Have you noticed anything happening about the same time it > has problems? (Moving the drive, the machine suspending, etc?) > > The first thing I would do is check the USB cable to the drive to > make sure it is plugged in all the way on both ends, and is not a > defective cable. If moving the cable causes problems, that is a good > indication of a cable problem. If it has its own power supply, check > that connection as well. Also, check that the supply is not getting > too hot. If it's plugged into a USB hub, check that as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxx - - CDN Systems, Internap, Inc. http://www.internap.com - - - - Denial. It ain't just a river in Egypt anymore! - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
