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Date:      Sat, 12 Oct 2002 12:29:22 -0400
From:      Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com>
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   [OT] how to isolate hardware failure with ATA
Message-ID:  <3DA84DE2.9000104@potentialtech.com>

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I think the computer that I'm currently working on has
hardware that is about to fail.  But I'm not sure if it's
the mobo or the HDD.  In the past week, this scenerio has
happened twice.
The system just freezes.  Not completely, mind you, but
anything that needs to use the HDD doesn't work.  (it's
weird, you can still type in an Xterm, but it can't
execute the commands because it can't get the binaries
off the HDD)
One time that it did this, I hard booted and and the BOIS
claimed that there was no HDD, so I poped the cover to check
for loose cables, found none, and (figuring I was hosed with
a bad HDD) it booted up OK this time.  The other time, the
hard boot resulted in a successful reboot.
Prior to this week, this computer has been 100% reliable for
about 2 years now.

So, I'm assuming the problem is one of two things: HDD or
ATA controller on the mobo.  Does anyone have any advice on
how to isolate the cause of the problem?  I'm on a budget
and I'd really like to replace _only_ the part that's failing,
but I'm not sure how to isolate the problem, and I don't have
any spare hardware to swap out.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com


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