after clean install, repeated errors force root filesystem to become readonly

[henge]

So, i clean installed yesterday, all went fine, installed to /dev/sda8 (with partitions on disk for 'data', windows7, and an old install of mintKDE).
Went ahead an installed all my ususal applications etc. via muon package manager.
Then out of the blue filesystem become readonly. Reboot tells me there are errors etc. so i boot with liveUSB and run fsck on the /dev/sda8. this fixes some errors and finds alot of 'inode orphans'. But system boots ok after, until five minuted later, system is readonly again. Running fsck find no errors but loads of inode orphan issues.
So, googling around tells me that it may be a hard disk failure, but why did this only come to light after i'd installed 12.10?
And all my other partitions seem fine (windows and mintKDE boot ok).

Currently running check disk on my NTFS partitions from a windows OS i've not needed to boot for a year. A slow slow process.

so my question is, what (other than a harddisk failure) might be causing the repeated errors on the root partition?

Cheers!

[doctordruidphd]

You might try installing gsmartcontrol (and its depedencies). You will then need to run it as:

kdesudo gmsartcontrol

There are error reports and tests that can be run from there. This tests the drive hardware.

[henge]

have just checked hardisk with smartmontools, and the disk 'passed'.
Also it has just occured to me that i forgot to do an md5sum check of downloaded iso; i wonder if that might casue the repeated filsystem errors?

[doctordruidphd]

The md5sum probably doesn't matter with this problem, and if smartmon isn't finding any problems, then your hard disk is probably ok, physically at least.

Next time this happens, try running df and see if your file system is filling up; that could cause it. This happened to me once, and it was ~/.xsession-errors that was filling up the whole disk due to one program going whacky. Also take a look at /var/log/syslog and see if anything is complaining there.

When you ran fsck on /dev/sd8, it wasn't mounted, right? You need to run it from the CD or from another partition with /dev/sda8 unmounted, or fsck can scramble the file system.

[henge]

The md5sum probably doesn't matter with this problem, and if smartmon isn't finding any problems, then your hard disk is probably ok, physically at least.

Next time this happens, try running df and see if your file system is filling up; that could cause it. This happened to me once, and it was ~/.xsession-errors that was filling up the whole disk due to one program going whacky. Also take a look at /var/log/syslog and see if anything is complaining there.

When you ran fsck on /dev/sd8, it wasn't mounted, right? You need to run it from the CD or from another partition with /dev/sda8 unmounted, or fsck can scramble the file system.

yeah, ran fsck from liveusb, am getting the horrible feeling that it might be a harddisk problem, even though SMART reported no errors....had the same readonly problem just this afternoon when using my backup mintkde distro on another partition.
so, i'm going for broke, installing cunchbang on the partition where kubuntu previously was (i've always wanted to try it!) and then kubuntu over the mintkde partition. i'll bear in mind your advice re the full filesystem, but if this doesn't work then it looks like i'm off to buy a new hardisk tomorrow. perhaps treat myself to a whole TB, all formatted ext3/4, and wave byebye to windows for good! (still have a win7 partition kicking around, and the whole ext4-ntfs file transfers is a cpu-hog-nightmare!)
cheers

[henge]

So, as i feared it was the harddisk. Quite why it should suddenly start failing after the install of 12.10 i have no idea, i can only assume that the disk was under more pressure than usual.
Anyway, have a nice shiny new 1TB disk, and have spent the best part of two days reinstalling and configuring etc. but all is now well, and i'm very pleased with my new kubuntu 12.10.
Thanks for the help and suggestions, i actually learned quite alot along the way...
cheers!

[doctordruidphd]

Glad you got it fixed. But the fact that smartmon did not tell you about a hardware problem does not inspire confidence.

[bailout]

Did your drive fail completely or did you do any more tests on it? Your problem sounds similar to one I have had since installing 12.10 http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...l=1#post313625

Most hard drive manufacturers have a test program for download that will check your drive for errors. I had similar corruption problems to you with 12.10 64 but no problems with ubuntu 12.04, windows and my drive has passed the extended check using the Western Digital utility.

I have now reinstalled 12.10 and will see if the same problems happen again. The drive does seem to be nosier than with 12.04 but I don't know whether I am imagining it.

[henge]

after having the problems for a few days i popped into a very friendly local computer shop i use alot, basically to buy RAM as i thought mine was faulty. Because they're very nice, she told me to leave the laptop with her for a couple of hours, she ran a few ram tests and whilst the internal memtest found many errors, when memtest was run from bootable disc it found none. So then she ran a seagate harddrive test and discovered that the disc was faulty. To be honest, and with the benefit of hindsight, i've been having copying errors and other problems for quite a while, before installing 12.10. Since installing the new harddisk the laptop's been running great and much smoother than for the past six months or so.

since installing my new disk i haven't done anything with the old one, but i might chase it up with the manufacturer as the drive is under two years old. I wonder if anything in the way 12.10 is written (differently to previous versions) that might expose errors (if that is even possible)?

hope you get your problems sorted!

[Spadge]

even though SMART reported no errors....

In my experience, SMART warns you moments after a hard disk fails catastrophically.

[luckyone]

You have to turn the crank harder.