Strange hard drive problem

[Detonate]

My Ubuntu 11.04 install started acting strange today. Every time I would try to do something that requires disk activity, such as opening or closing a program, the computer would lock up, the hard drive activity light would come on and stay on for as much as two or three minutes, until it finally came back to life. Some programs would not open, some once opened would not close. I can boot into my Kubuntu install on a different disk just fine, but when I try to mount the problem disk it takes forever. I have checked the disk with S.M.A.R.T and no problems are reported. I ran e2fsck on the partion and again, no problems are reported. But I think the disk must be dying.
I backed up my home directory to a different drive and tomorrow I am going to reinstall. Thoughts? Is it the disk or the file system? Something is wrong.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Strange hard drive problem

Nothing in the logs?

Sounds very hardware-ish to me. The first thing I'd check is cable connections - make suyre nothing wiggled loose.

[Detonate]

Re: Strange hard drive problem

Yes, I checked those, finally having eliminated all other possible causes, I retired the hard drive. System is running good now. Happy I was able to back up my /home before it failed completely. It was a 500GB Seagate if anyone cares. Only a couple of years old. MY WD's just keep on spinning.

[dibl]

Re: Strange hard drive problem

MY WD's just keep on spinning.

That's my experience too. I used to like Maxtor, but that brand went away in a flash. I've never had a WD fail on me -- I've got a pair of WD740s that have been running since 2004 and show no sign of trouble. (but there's nothing irreplaceable on them, at this point)

[oshunluvr]

Re: Strange hard drive problem

I had all my older WD 320's fail at almost the same time - exactly 3 years old plus a few weeks on a three year warranty. Now that's what I call "Quality Control"

I replaced them with 4x WD 500GB Caviar "Blue" which now have about 4 years on them and have 2x 1TB Black (2 years) and 2x 2TB Black (1 year) drives in my server.

All of these drives are running without problems, with the single exception of a while back I powered down my desktop and removed one of the 500GB drives to use it in another device. Upon restarting my desktop - one of the remaining drives (we'll call it drive "B" to avoid using real names... ) would not spin up. I got the all-too-familiar "whirr, click, whirr click." I used an old hard drive trick and tapped the offending drive (while powered off, of course) gently with a screw driver handle and it worked on the next attempt. S.M.A.R.T. still reports it as OK.