Standard Mischief

Part of the recent problem I had with a hard disk crashing is that I have not been properly backing up my data. I’ve got several options, but I wanted to burn plain text data DVDs and keep them under lock and key. The problem is that there has been a long term bug in a few live Linux CDs regarding running K3b as root. You get a message like this:

(clickable photo)

for Google’s sake, it says the following:

Unable to find cdrdao executable
K3b uses growisofs to actually write dvds. Without growisofs you won’t be able to write dvds. Make sure to install at least version 5.10.
Solution: Install the dvd+rw-tools package.

The problem only shows up when you are root, which is what you want to be if you are backing up files. If you want to back up everything, you want to be sure you have rights to read everything. Suggested solutions such as using sudo or kdesu fail also.

One would think from reading the error message that all you would need to do is install the proper package, but as far as I can tell it’s installed properly. You seem to be able to burn DVDs on the command line with growisofs too, although you lose that nice drag-and-drop interface.

Sorry, I’ve as of yet got no answers, but I’ll repost if I find a solution or there is a useful work-around.

also:
Ubuntu bug #91417
Newsgroup linux.debian.user
Newsgroup lucky.freebsd.questions

ReiserFS is a general-purpose, journaled computer file system that usually only shows up on *nix systems. A journaling file system basically records what it’s about to do in a journal before doing it, such that if power is lost during the operation, after it’s restored, the file system can recover itself. It’s suppose to be “fault tolerant”, but after a recent wind storm and the accompanying power outage, I found that one of the partitions on my hard drive would not mount. The root partition was kinda sorta flaky too, sometimes mounting, sometimes not.

Searching teh intarwebs, I came across the this great little post. Using that and a tool called dd_rescue, I was able to get most of my data back. Because I think I can add a bit better explanation, I’ve decided to write up the steps.

Got the same problem I had? Here’s how to check.

1. Boot using a copy of Knoppix live CD.
2. Be root.
3. With the drive unmounted, run reiserfsck –check partition

# reiserfsck --check /dev/hda3

If you get something back like:

bread: Cannot read the block (8210): (Input/output error).

Well, then you have what I had. I’d advise you to write off the entire drive as a loss. I would be afraid of trusting it any longer. Of course, you likely want to pull the data off first, unless you have been smart about backups.

So I went and got a new drive. Although my motherboard supports SATA drives, Knoppix out of the box does not. I ended up going back to the store for a second drive that takes EIDE (also PATA, or parallel ATA) The message I linked to seems to imply you can use any type of storage system you can write to, but I created a new ReiserFS partition.

Standard industry practice is to put CD and DVD burners on one EIDE cable, and any hard drives on another. This is so data transfer is sped up during CD burning. In my case is was a mistake. With both drives on the same EIDE cable, I had to write a block of data to RAM, and stop, and send that same data back down the cable to the second drive. It would have been much faster if I had the CD-ROM and the new drive on one cable and the dead drive on another. That way data could stream up one cable and down another.

It seems that Knoppix does not enable DMA acceleration (misspelled as “acelleration” on the menu) by default. You probably want to enable this, although there seems to be a few bad mothers out there that can’t handle it. I did not, and recovery took 3 fracking days. Enable this by K Menu::KNOPPIX::Utilities::Harddisk/CD/DVD/ DMA acelleration

Step by step, on how I did it (or, knowing now how I should have done things.)

1. Get a new hard drive that’s at least as big as the trashed partition you are trying to recover. Install on a different EIDE cable as the bad drive if at all possible.
2. Boot Knoppix (I used 5.1.1 EN)
3. Assign yourself a root password using K Menu::KNOPPIX::Set password for root
4. Using K Menu::System::GNOME partition editor create a partition on your new drive at least as large as the one you are trying to recover. Just to be sure, I made mine a few MB larger.
5. Enable DMA acceleration.
6. Open a Konsole, be root.
7. With both source and recovery partitions unmounted, type:

# dd_rescue -A /dev/hda3 /dev/hdb2

Where “#” is the root prompt (that you don’t type), the -A option inserts zeros when the source could not read a block. Replace /dev/hda3 with your bad partition and /dev/hdb2 with your new partition.
8. You could use nice or renice to speed things up a bit if you want. If you are not familiar with how they work read the man pages.
9. After dd_rescue makes an exact bit-for-bit copy of whatever it can read, you need to fsck the new copy. the frontend fsck told me to run reiserfsck --rebuild-tree.

# reiserfsck --rebuild-tree /dev/hdb2

10. Mount the recovered file system and make a backup of the critical content.

Thank you rvalles. Thank you Kurt Garloff

MOVs, metal oxide varistors, are the standard mischief in most surge suppressers. The funny thing about them is that they silently wear out. They suck up a certain amount of surges, and they could then give up the ghost without a whimper.

That’s apparently what happened to me during the wind storm we had the other day. Reports indicate that we lost power around 11am Eastern, and we got everything back around 11pm, everything except my hard drive that is.

Just for the record, yes I have backups. No, they were not as current as I’d like, due to some wonky issues with my DVD burner. Maybe, I can recover most of the drive. My root partition mounted, but there were bad blocks on the /home partition. I’ve gotten a new hard drive and I’ve installed an OS (I wanted to try Ubuntu anyway). Once I get the DVD issues resolved I’ll work on the dead drive forensics.

In the meanwhile, my RSS aggravator is offline, and all the mischief I’ve added on to my browser is missing. I’m starting to see ads and pop-ups again and pages are loading slowly because I’m not blocking all your lame-ass free hit-counters.

Taxes are done. You’re damn right I had a frequently updated backup of that, although the IRS seems to have given everyone effected by those windstorms an extra two days or something.

The MOV un-funniness is something I always knew about, but never acted upon, but I’m wondering if maybe we all need to change out our power strips every year when we change our clocks or something. You would think that someone would come up with a power strip with a consumable, replaceable insert or something. Well, something to think about.

I suppose I’m going to post this screed, power down the box, pull the wall-plug and plan on power strip shopping tomorrow morning.

Uncle talks about a badly needed BATFE reform: H.R. 1791

Does is have a ghost of a chance, or is this just to make the people with a (D) after their own name look bad around election time come ‘08?

In other words, where have you been the past few years?

Pro-freedom firearms people bitch about what Zumbo said, but I’ve yet to hear an apology from the pro-gun congress-critters for near zero progress during the time when they were in power .

Anyway, Govtrak has the current scoop on the bill, although it’s too new to include the text. That will show up in a day or so. I’m willing to bet that this particular example will be a short, concise, easy reader. I’ll update when the text becomes available.

Updated 06-Apr-07: As predicted, this one comes in at a succinct 728 words. [sarcasm] By golly, our pro-freedom critters are doing something important in congress! [/sarcasm]