I have a pair of workstations that have been in use for 15 years. A
rust disk on one failed in January. Though I did not (and do not)
know how to remove the disk from the system properly, I did disconnect
wiring from the disk to the cpu board, and this computer is usable.
It is in use writing this in fact.

Now I have a notice that the Linux hard disk on my other workstation
is failing. It has a Win8 hard drive that it came with, that has
not been used for more than a few minutes now and then for years.
That drive seems ok. The other 1TB rust drive with multiple versions
of Linux on it is reported likely to fail soon.

SMART data says Reallocation 560 sectors, Normalized 130, Threshold 51,
Worst 130, prefail on Failing.

I remember that setting up these computers, disks, and software
was quite a chore 15 years ago, and no doubt things are more
elaborate now.

Where can I find understandable instructions for what I need to do ?

What instructions should I follow ?

Help!


Cheers!

jim b.


--
UNIX is not user-unfriendly, it merely
expects users to be computer friendly.

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Hello Jim!

13 Apr 25 19:05, Jim wrote to all:

I have a pair of workstations that have been in use for 15 years. A
rust disk on one failed in January. Though I did not (and do not)
know how to remove the disk from the system properly, I did disconnect
wiring from the disk to the cpu board, and this computer is
usable. It is in use writing this in fact.

Now I have a notice that the Linux hard disk on my other workstation
is failing. It has a Win8 hard drive that it came with, that has
not been used for more than a few minutes now and then for years.
That drive seems ok. The other 1TB rust drive with multiple versions
of Linux on it is reported likely to fail soon.

SMART data says Reallocation 560 sectors, Normalized 130, Threshold
51, Worst 130, prefail on Failing.

I remember that setting up these computers, disks, and software
was quite a chore 15 years ago, and no doubt things are more
elaborate now.

Where can I find understandable instructions for what I need to do ?

What instructions should I follow ?

Process depends on what is stored on drive :

1. System and boot drive.
A. Stop using it ASAP (like now), and power it down, replace drive with a
new or newish replacement, reinstall O/S and if an old version update it if Linux etc.
B. Once operational shut down & reinstall failing drive and transfer over
to new, all wanted data both system but be careful with system data to not overwrite later versions etc, and all needed user data, programs etc.

2. Data only drive.
A. Similar to above Stop using drive and install a new replacement and partition and format it then power down.
B. Reinstall failing drive, power up and copy over all needed data but if
in doubt all of it.


In both cases now power down removing failing drive and retain until you
are sure you have all data and s/w needed and this may well take some weeks/months to assess.


You will need to read the mobo manuals to see what drive types are
supported but I suspect Pata / IDE types only but you may be lucky in that
Sata HDD is also supported so obtain these over IDE as these are hard to
obtain other than via Ebay or such and even then only for a short period of time before they are at risk due to age and power on times.

Regardless of both situations, AVOID writing to any failing drive as it
will make matters worse and with a higher risk of failure.


If needed consider doing all copying using a modern mobo that will support
both HDD types data over one drive at a time etc even if the copying is to
a temporary HDD.



Vincent



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Reply-To: [email protected]

On 4/14/25 07:32, Jim wrote:

On Mon, 14 Apr 2025 07:08:03 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

On 4/13/25 11:05, Jim wrote:

I have a pair of workstations, in use for 15 years...

Now I have a notice that the Linux hard disk on my other workstation
is failing. It has a Win8 hard drive that it came with, that has
not been used for more than a few minutes now and then for years.
That drive seems ok. The other 1TB rust drive with multiple versions
of Linux on it is reported likely to fail soon.

SMART data says Reallocation 560 sectors, Normalized 130, Threshold 51,
Worst 130, prefail on Failing.

I remember that setting up these computers, disks, and software
was quite a chore 15 years ago, and no doubt things are more
elaborate now.

Where can I find understandable instructions for what I need to do ?

jim b.

Look for the model of the motherbord then search online
for the user or setup manual.
Buy your replacdment disks and I recommend SSD if your
machine can handle them AS Soon as you can because prices are
going to be uncertain with the Tariff Tango being danced in
the White House and Bejing.

Just my very humble opinion.
bliss - back after 3 months in hospital for broken ankle.

Bobbie's idea seems good. I have been playing with a couple
of other ideas. Any recommendations ?

First, I could either boot to mageia 7 in its partitions,
and then upgrade to Mageia 9, either directly from Mageia 7
(Will that work?) or via upgrading to Mageia 8 and then
to Mageia 9. Then my files (as opposed to system files)
could be copied from the current Mageia 9 on my other
workstation.

That might extend the life of the disk, but it would still
be an old disk. Would it be worth the trouble to try it?

Definitely not! Just putting the expense n a bit
down the road. With the Tariff Tango being danced in the
Oval Office prices may go out of sight too soon.
Get your files backed up ASAP. I failed to do
so and lost an incalucable amount of payment and personal
information over the last 20 years of so.

My other idea would be to have MicroCenter install an
SSD or two, unmount the soon-to-fail disk, and try
to install Mageia 9 to the SSD.

That sounds good to me but how old is your mb?
But I work mostly with laptops of the Dell brand
and am accustomed to add SSD and RAM myself.This is
from a Dell Precision 7730 with 6 cores that I bought
from Walmart refurbished at a good price and is about
6 years from date of manufacture.

I think I did replace the motherboard on this computer
years ago, so there is still a question of age. Would
it be better to simply buy a new workstation and go
from there ?

That depends on what you are prepared to spend.

Cheers!

jim b.

Good luck to you Jim.

bliss

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On 15/4/25 00:08, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

    Just my very humble opinion.
    bliss - back after 3 months in hospital for broken ankle.

It's about time you retired from Parkour, Bobby :-)

PS:
I don't suppose you've heard from the Bit Twister?


--
faeychild
Running kde on 6.6.83-desktop-1.mga9 kernel.
Mageia release 9 (Official) for x86_64

--- MBSE BBS v1.1.1 (Linux-x86_64)
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Hello Jim!

13 Apr 25 19:05, Jim wrote to all:

I have a pair of workstations that have been in use for 15 years. A
rust disk on one failed in January. Though I did not (and do not)
know how to remove the disk from the system properly, I did disconnect
wiring from the disk to the cpu board, and this computer is
usable. It is in use writing this in fact.

Now I have a notice that the Linux hard disk on my other workstation
is failing. It has a Win8 hard drive that it came with, that has
not been used for more than a few minutes now and then for years.
That drive seems ok. The other 1TB rust drive with multiple versions
of Linux on it is reported likely to fail soon.

SMART data says Reallocation 560 sectors, Normalized 130, Threshold
51, Worst 130, prefail on Failing.

I remember that setting up these computers, disks, and software
was quite a chore 15 years ago, and no doubt things are more
elaborate now.

Where can I find understandable instructions for what I need to do ?

What instructions should I follow ?

Forgot to say - if in any kind of doubt or if the HDD is a boot drive - DO
NOT USE or POWER UP.
Contact a data recovery business may be through a large chain of computer stores and request that they pass the kit to the recovery business and
pray you have not had a hard crash of the heads.

They will transfer all recoverable data to a USB external drive in each instance of a bad drive so if two are failing it will involve two external drives.

I have bar twice, managed to stop and recover myself but once for my wife's system I used a recovery site after handing over the drive but in the
earlier instance a long time back I had a hard crash on a removable 16 Mb
drive that there was not the facility of smartmon so they had to strip down
the platters and put them on a special rig to recover most of it all.

Ask the data recover business if they need your systems but in my wife's
they only wanted the drive and the make / model of the mobo.

I then spend 15 - 25 hours copying over the recovered data to a new drive
as the files were not always in the same folders.

The bulk was photos so they had an easier job of it as against other types
of data :)


Under no conditions should you power up a drive that is also a boot drive
as the boot process will write to the drive which will make matters worse.

If under a modern o/s such as *nix a data drive MUST be treated the same
and windows does the same when access files that the directory content is updated with a access or modify date as well.

Vincent



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On 15/04/2025 8:18 am, faeychild wrote:

<Snip>

PS:
I don't suppose you've heard from the Bit Twister?

Now there's a good question! ;-P
--
Daniel70

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