RAED_DMA timed out crap

[Erik Norgaard]

On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, kalin mintchev wrote:

> >> fsck stops randomly with stuff like:
> >> CANNOT READ BLOCK: ########
> >> evry time is different number and eventually i get:
> >> ad0: WARNING - removed from configuration
> >> ata0-master: FAILURE - READ_DMA timed out
> >
> > Sounds like the HD may be near a fatal crash.
> > I suggest you backup as much as you can.
>
> yea..  that was my thought too but it's only one drive and i can't get it
> to boot all the way. and it's a laptop.....
>
> is there a way to mount remotely a laptop hdd?

I just had to recover from that problem last week, also on a
laptop drive.

First, have you tried booting in single user? mount all drives
read only, and use atacontrol to slow down the drive like this:

  # atacontrol mode 0 udma33 pio4

this may solve some problem. Run fsck -yf on all disks. Try
editing fstab so drives are mounted read only, you can avoid
mounting /var and /tmp and use memory disks for these by setting
varmfs=yes in rc.conf.

This may help you rescue your data while on the laptop.

Another option is to buy a converter cable that lets you connect a
laptop drive to a standard IDE port, if you have an ordinary
station available.

Cheers, Erik

GnuPG: http://www.locolomo.org/home/norgaard/norgaard.gpg.asc
pub  1024D/11D11F9E 2003-08-15 Erik Norgaard <norgaard at locolomo.org>
     Key fingerprint = C394 81C4 D137 EEE5 39BE  82D5 3E6B FB3E 11D1 1F9E