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I have one problem. I have laptop and the hard disk light lightning every 2 second strong in the meantime there are a lot of fast blinking even though i don't do anything. Even more - hard disk is doing some strange annoying sounds.

I have ASUS k50ij, 320 gb HDD, 2gb RAM and Ubuntu 10.04. Any ideas

thx

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First: do not store any important information on that drive anymore. Try to backup as much as you can (don't overwrite previous backups, as you currently could get bad data from the drive). If you've done with your backups, please install the package smartmontools and provide the output of sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda (where sda is the device name of the hard drive). You can use paste.ubuntu.com to just link to the information instead of pasting it here. – htorque Dec 18 '10 at 9:22
I doubt this is Ubuntu related, you should ask over at superuser.com – Olivier Lalonde Dec 18 '10 at 22:37

4 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

This is a clear sign of a failing hard drive, the fact that the computer keeps on trying to access the hard drive is because failures in reading and writing are causing heavy load.

Backup all your files as soon as possible and prepare to buy a new hard drive to replace the current one.

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up vote 1 down vote

I confirm previuos posts. Because 2 weeks ago my colleague has replaced a 320Gb HDD in ASUS X5DIJ (Intel Duo T3000, 320Gb, 2Gb) sold in Latvia (European Union). 320 Gb HDD bad sectors (by Disk Utility)

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thank you all for the comments. My results from smartmoontools are paste.ubuntu.com/545214 What should i do now? Wait till my HDD dies or replace it immediately? Thx – Shark Dec 18 '10 at 11:33
I don't see any bad sectors. It could be HDD mechanical problem. If you can, replace your disk. Current disk you may continue to use as an external (buy an enclosure for your disk (costs about 5-15 EUR)). – Vincenzo Dec 18 '10 at 22:26
up vote 1 down vote

I've lost several hard drives over the years, and once they start making noises you should immediately start planning to replace the drive. It may last for some time, or it may only last another couple days. Back up as much as you can to CDs/DVDs or a network location, preferably setting up automated/scheduled backups as well.

There's some good information on making backups in ubuntu here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem

If you do end up with a failed drive, you can use gddrescue to recover most of the data on it, but it's far easier to restore from backups.

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Fully agree with you ! Unfortunately, HDD produced in last 3-5 years tend to have short life, especially when work at maximum allowed temperatures (about 60 grad Celsius). – Vincenzo Dec 18 '10 at 22:21
Thank you guys. I have update my important data. You helped me a lot. – Shark Dec 19 '10 at 15:19
up vote 0 down vote

Yes it is true that your hard drive may be on the way out. I had the same symptoms. I turned my computer off for a day, and from there it was fine. Been running fine ever since. Backing up your data is always a good idea though. ALWAYS

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