• How to access a disk with bad superblock Linux Ubuntu Debian Redhat CentOS ext3 ext4


    Have you ever tried mounting a partition that you exists but you get this error? mount: /mnt: can't read superblock on /dev/sda1. The superblock in this example was bad because the physical disk had corruption and bad blocks/sectors. However, the data was generally accessible and you can always try this trick below (with caution and no warranty). This is specifically for filesystems that place superblocks in multiple locations, which........
  • Docker Swarm vs Kubernetes Comparison Guide


    A lot of companies are unsure which solution to choose and many may not be aware of Docker Swarm as an alternative to Kubernetes. One thing that many Sysadmins find is that Docker Swarm is simply easier, quicker to setup and maintain by far than Kubernetes.........
  • How To Restore Partition Table on Running Linux Mint Ubuntu Debian Machine


    Here is an easy way to restore things if you have the starting point and size of each partition using fdisk: In this example we pretend that /dev/sda was wiped out, but the running system still has the info in /sys/class/block/sda Go into each partition and record the "start" and "size" hostdev@box /sys/class/block/sda/sda1 $ cat start 2048 hostdev@box /sys/class/block/sda/sd........
  • Juniper JunOS Command Overview and Howtos Switch, Router, Firewall Tutorial Guide


    Enable "cli" mode equivalent in JunOS cli Configure Mode configure So rather than going to the console on a Cisco switch and typing "enable" and then "conf t", the equivalent in JunOS is "cli" and "configure". How Do You Apply Changes You've Made? You can make all kinds of changes to the switch, but remember they are not........
  • Linux Ubuntu Debian Centos How To Make a Bootable Windows 7, 8, 10, 2016, 2019 Server USB from ISO


    Use fdisk on your USB drive to create a bootable NTFS partition (in my case /dev/sdb): sudo fdisk /dev/sdb Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.27.1). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Command (m for help): n Partition type p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)........
  • gsmartcontrol for Windows to Check the SMART S.M.A.R.T status


    gsmartcontrol is a free tool that let's you see the status of the SMART parameters so you can check things like temperature, reallocated sectors, bad sectors etc.. to give you a better idea of your drive health. Download it here. gsmartcontrol is a very useful tool in Windows to check your HDD / Hard Drive health status. In my experience you should NEVER trust that everything is OK just because SMAR........
  • VBOX VirtualBox How To Import Raw .img Disk File


    What you need to do if you have taken a dd or real raw image dump of a hard disk: VBoxManage convertdd windows2019-eval-template.img windows2019.vdi --format VDI The .img is the raw dd dump and the .vdi is the output file. --format VDIspecifies to output to .vdi format If you are in a pinch you can always use qemu-kvm binary and manually specify the .img as your disk and i........
  • Linux partprobe/partx cannot access last and 4th partition


    On a test machine Iwas never able to access to a newly created 4th partiton. As we can see there are dev devices for everything but the 4th partition. The normal "partprobe" or "kpartx" or kernel being told to rescan the block device didn't help (only a reboot did). fdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders Units........
  • Why SMART is not smart at all and doesn't properly predict disk errors that cause a kernel panic or crash


    Before getting into the output here is my typical experience with SMART, there is what I call a "bad disk" with pending and uncorrectable sectors that cannot be reallocated. It has caused a kernel panic and system crash repeatedly as we can see from the logs. But SMART says it has "PASSED" its self assessment. SMART is still useful to me but it is more about looking at Current_Pending_Sector. Any time I have had anything but 0 for that attribute it........
  • Track 01: 34 of 1726 MB written (fifo 100%) [buf 99%] 3.6x.Errno: 5 (Input/output error), write_g1 scsi sendcmd: cmd timeout after 1.897 (40) s CDB: 2A 00 00 00 44 A9 00 00 1F 00 resid: 6144 cmd finished after 1.897s timeout 40s write track da


    These errors believe it or not are simply because of not being the root user or running with sudo! However if you didn't know to try as root you'd think there was a problem with your burner or disc Essentially it looks like without root you cannot send the required scsi commands to continue writing. Ithink cdrecord should have built-in tests or safeguards to see if it has the permissions to run the required commands. I guess for more advanced users the idea is simila........
  • remove gpt partition linux


    sudo fdisk /dev/sdh WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdh'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. WARNING: The size of this disk is 8.0 TB (8001563221504 bytes). DOS partition table format can not be used on drives for volumes larger than (2199023255040 bytes) for 512-byte sectors. Use parted(1) and GUID partition table format (GPT). The device presents a l........
  • Linux How To Recover Partition Table from Kernel and Restore Centos/Debian etc..


    We've all done this at some point, you work on the wrong shell window and this was my first time making this mistake but I deleted a partition table in fdisk, recreated it and saved it with "wq" and even ran partprobe! If you haven't rebooted yet then you can still recover your partition table, otherwise you're in big trouble. Fortunately since it was a live system and in use the kernel still had to use the old table like below:........
  • Centos installing grub problems suspect gpt problem


    grub> root (hd0,0) root (hd0,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup (hd0) setup (hd0) But if you do: root (hd1,0) setup (hd1) it does work, I think hd0/sda had a GPT partition that was not removed properly (what I did was just dd bs=512 count=1 the partition table from another drive since the partition table should be identical). Checking if "/boot/grub/........
  • How to manually mount Linux disk image partition without using losetup


    In this case we want to mount partition #2 fdisk -lu Centos-6.6-x86_64.img You must set cylinders. You can do this from the extra functions menu. Disk Centos-6.6-x86_64.img: 0 MB, 0 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 0 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Device Boot&nbs........
  • Centos 6 how to guide convert LVM non-RAID into mdadm 1/10 RAID array live without reinstalling


    Here is the scenario you or a client have a remote machine that was installed as a standard/default minimal Centos 6.x machine on a single disk with LVM for whatever reason. Often many people do not know how to install it to a RAID array so it is common to have this problem and why reinstall if you don't need to? In some cases on a remote system you can't easily reinstall without physical or KVM access. So in this case you add a second physical or disk or already ha........
  • LVM Tutorial how to create a Physical Volume (PV), Volume Group (vg), and a Logical Volume (LV) within it


    # first we need a physical volume which we use the pvcreate tool to create # I create mine on /dev/sdb3 pvcreate /dev/sdb3 dev_is_mpath: failed to get device for 8:19 Physical volume "/dev/sdb3" successfully created # pvdisplay shows the newly created volume pvdisplay "/dev/sdb3" is a new physical volume of "1.35 TiB" --- NEW Physical volume --- PV N........
  • Howto Convert Xen Image to KVM


    #count=10000 makes an image of 10000MB make sure your image is at least the same as your existing dd if=/dev/zero of=yourimage.img bs=1M count=10000 # losetup -fv newimage.raw # fdisk -cu /dev/loop0 # kpartx -a /dev/loop0 # dd if= of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 # e2fsck -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 # resize2fs /dev/mapper/loop0p1 # a lot of guides tell you to edit /etc/fst........
  • What a hdd hard drive and mdadm RAID array failure looks like in Linux


    [3805108.257042] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 1953525168 512-byte hardware sectors: (1.00 TB/931 GiB) [3805108.257052] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off [3805108.257054] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [3805108.257066] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA [3805108.257083] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 1953525168 512-byte hardware sectors: (1.00 TB/931 GiB) [3805108.257090] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off........
  • Dell Perc 6/i SATA benchmarks without battery


    The results are not bad, the Hitachi performs the same as it does in a SATA2 motherboard. However, the 2TB is much different, on a similar 2TB Toshiba I get about 198MB/s on a different motherboard vs the 2TB Hitachi which should produce similar results. This Dell Perc 6/i is on a PCI x8 riser card and is connected to a 12-port backplane. Adapter #0 Enclosure Device ID: 32 Slot Number: 0 Enclosure position: N/A De........
  • LSI MegaRAID Adventures, Guide and HowTo


    LSi Megaraid At first it was configured as a RAID 0, then I deleted the Virtual Disk Group. I thought both drives would be shown and detected in Linux as sda and sdb but it actually shows nothing. To make them work you have to hit Ctrl+R before the system boots (when prompted) and create a Virtual Disk Group. In my case I created each one as RAID 0 (with a single drive only) as I just wanted JBOD but there is no such option or default in these Dell Pe........
  • WD 20EARX Dead Again


    Another new drive bad from the start: Jun 2 15:14:18 one-desktop kernel: [15895.386779] ata2.00: exception Emask 0x50 SAct 0x1 SErr 0x280900 action 0x6 frozen Jun 2 15:14:18 one-desktop kernel: [15895.386782] ata2.00: irq_stat 0x08000000, interface fatal error Jun 2 15:14:18 one-desktop kernel: [15895.386784] ata2: SError: { UnrecovData HostInt 10B8B BadCRC } Jun 2 15:14:18 one-desktop kernel: [15895.386788] ata2.00: cmd 60/0........
  • Samsung Galaxy Note ICS Corrupting microSDHC partition table?


    This was partitioned as a single 32GB VFAT but when I inserted it into the phone it said that it can't read it and now here is how the partition table looks. Interestingly enough the data works and reads fine from the computer still. Disk /dev/sdb1: 32.1 GB, 32085360640 bytes 64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 30598 cylinders, total 62666720 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum........
  • How to install GRUB to the MBR of a disk image.


    cat | grub --device-map=/dev/null Now pay close to the attention of the beginning. Type: "device (hd0) VPS.img" this is telling what hd0 will be to GRUB and we're telling it the disk image file "VPS.img" in the current directory is hd0, you can specify alternate paths and image names of course. GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory) [ Minimal BASH-li........
  • kvm cannot boot xen guest using lvm


    This booting error is because the Xen PV guest image uses the Xen kernel, this is not compatible with anything but a host running a Xen kernel. I did a kpartx -av virtual.img and then it created some partitions that showed up in fdisk. I mounted it and did a chroot into it and removed the xen kernel and installed a normal kernel but Xen still shows the same kernel in Grub (only the Xen one). This is strange but it seems like this Xen PV guest has some sort of hidden or........
  • mdadm: /dev/sdb1 not large enough to join array solution


    mdadm --manage /dev/md1 --add /dev/sdb1 mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored. mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored. mdadm: metadata format 00.90 unknown, ignored. mdadm: /dev/sdb1 not large enough to join array md1's first primary member /dev/sda3 has 57394 cylinders while the /dev/sdb1 has 57393 (1 less cylinder) which is why it won't work. fdisk -l /dev/sda3 Disk /dev/sda3: 47........
  • How to view an EFI GPT partition in Linux


    Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes 256 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38761 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16128 * 512 = 8257536 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 38........
  • failed to IDENTIFY (INIT_DEV_PARAMS failed, err_mask=0x80)


    [ 12.460014] ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16) [ 17.626677] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) [ 22.480011] ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16) [ 27.646681] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) [ 38.106817] ata1.01: failed to IDENTIFY (INIT_DEV_PARAMS failed, err_mask=0x80) [ 48.266676] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)........
  • KVM QEMU and Xen how to mount disk images off-line and access data


    fdisk -lu VPS.img last_lba(): I don't know how to handle files with mode 81ed You must set cylinders. You can do this from the extra functions menu. Disk VPS.img: 0 MB, 0 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 0 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Device Boot Start End ........
  • How To Burn ISO Image using cdrtools/dvdrtools for Linux/Unix Ubuntu/Debian/RHEL/Centos etc..


    It really is as simple as: cdrecord -v dev=/dev/sr0 pathtoyourisoimage.iso -v is for verbose, I prefer it but if you don't you won't see as much output like below (I like to know the details and exactly what's happening) dev=/dev/sr0 specifies the device name of your burner (they say not to use it and to specify some weird annoying device string but using the raw /dev has always worked for me and is how it should have been implemented from the start IMHO)........
  • How To Test If Your Hard Drive Is Good/Signs of dying hard drive


    I like dd, although it only reads it, usually a read test of the entire disk will uncover if your hard drive is bad in some parts. This is a good thing to do at least once a month, a lot of times bizarre program behavior, laginess and crashing/unnmounting problems etc.. are due to a failing disc and SMART won't know it or indicate a problem: We must also remember there's never a guarantee, I've found that ever since we moved to larger and more platters per drive with 1TB drives........
  • smart is not smart, it thinks a dead drive is still good


    I had a dying drive that smart thought until it totally disappeared was a good drive, and actually all parameters did look fine but this system was causing my system to lockup and other bad behavior: === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Device Model: WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 Serial Number: WD-WMAZ20139 Firmware Version: 50.0AB50 User Capacity: 2,000,398,934,016 bytes Device........
  • GRUB Solution to error "Error 6: Mismatched or corrupt version of stage1/stage2"


    GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory) [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename.] grub> root (hd1,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup........
  • Are my WDEARS20 Drives dying already?


    This happened during a RAID array check: SMART says both drives pass the test, but I'm doing a long test on them and hopefully this is not a hardware error. Apr 3 04:22:01 remote kernel: md: syncing RAID array md2 Apr 3 04:22:01 remote kernel: md: minimum _guaranteed_ reconstruction speed: 1000 KB/sec/disc. Apr 3 04:22:01 remote kernel: md: using maximum available idle IO bandwidth (but not more than 200000 KB/sec) for reconstruction. Apr........
  • Dying Seagate 7200.11 SD15


    [137392.910057] ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x1 SErr 0x80000 action 0x6 frozen [137392.910077] ata4: SError: { 10B8B } [137392.910095] ata4.00: cmd 60/20:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 tag 0 ncq 16384 in [137392.910099] res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout) [137392.910122] ata4.00: status: { DRDY } [137392.910135] ata4: hard resetting link [137393.440060] ata4: SATA link........
  • WD EARS Advanced Format Can't be fixed?


    There's no partial WD EARS alignment fix: I had data on /dev/sda3 and /dev/sdb3 (RAID1) so I couldn't edit that one. I thought I'd be smart and try fixing the first two partitions so I set the first one starting at sector 2048 and then +8 for the second partition. This has really slowed the performance down worse than it ever was! Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, tot........
  • mdadm RAID 1 adventures


    I separated the 2 drives in the RAID 1 array. 1 is the old one /dev/sda and is out of date, while the separated other one /dev/sdc was in another drive and mounted and used with more data (updated). I wonder how mdadm will handle this: usb-storage: device scan complete md: md127 stopped. md: bind md: md127: raid array is not clean -- starting background reconstruction raid1: raid set md127 active with 1 out of 2 m........
  • Revert to GRUB 0.97/1 instead of GRUB2


    had trouble trying to revert Ubuntu 10.04 LTS from grub2, won't boot mdraid and did not even install mdadm during the installation! I have tried moving back to GRUB 0.97 backed up original /boot and then copied /boot from an old Debian install. Modified device.map and menu.lst and put the appropriate kernels and initrd for Ubuntu back in /boot I ran grub: root (hd0,1) grub> setup (hd0) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1........
  • mdadm when a RAID 1 member dies


    [27969.398749] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] 3907029168 512-byte hardware sectors (2000399 MB) [27969.398749] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off [27969.398749] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [27969.398749] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA [27972.117543] ata6.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x1 SErr 0x0 action 0x0 [27972.117543] ata6.00: irq_stat 0x48000000 [27972.117543] ata6.00: cmd 60/08:00:ff:7........
  • Linux Burn MP3 CD On the Fly using


    I finally decided to look into some utils that did this, and the first one I found is "mp3burn". It is unbelievable simple and perfect. *2017-11 update and mp3burn is still available in standard repos such as Ubuntu 14/16 so this is a current and working project. Just install the package and it gets all required libraries to convert and then burn's on the fly. And you won't believe how simple it is. I just want to a directory that had the MP3's I wanted t........
  • mdadm: /dev/sda1 is too small: 0K - solution


    I was creating a RAID array and got this error: mdadm: /dev/sda1 is too small: 0K mdadm: create aborted Of course sda1 is not too small, both partitions sda1 and sdb1 are identical in size: Disk /dev/sda: 2000.3 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Sta........
  • Seagate Drive 500GB Drive Dying


    This drive is clearly on the way out, the Kernel knows it but I'm surprised that SMART is not concerned. I didn't blame Seagate for their past issues until now. This hard drive has hardly been used and has not even been powered on for a year according to SMART. Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Device........
  • Linux AHCI Hotswap Tips - Remember To Reread The Partition Table WITHOUT rebooting


    From the package "parted" you can use the command "partprobe" to re-read the partition table. I really hate rebooting, and that's what Iloved to hear about AHCI motherboards, that they allow hotswap so you don't have to reboot. But that's only as good as the OS, if the OS does not reload the partition table you won't be able to do anything with that new drive you attached without rebooting. Yes, even without re-reading the partiton table Linux will........
  • Convert HDD/Hard Drive Partition(s) into non-RAID into RAID 1 using existing data without data loss and without reformatting.


    Before we start I take no responsibility for this, you should have a backup and if you make a mistake during this process you could wipe out all of your data. So backup somewhere else before starting this as a precaution, or make sure it's data you could afford to lose. The RAID 1 Setup (Hardware Wise) I've already setup my 2 x 1TB (Seagate) drives with identical partitions, make sure your new hard drive (the empty one) is setup like your curr........
  • ntfs-3g Error/Fix/Solution - Unexpected sectors per cluster value (127). Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a


    ./ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt -o force Unexpected sectors per cluster value (127). Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around? This is happening on a system I've come across an HP 6930P running Windows XP Professional. The partition appears to be very norm........
  • Compaq V2405CA Laptop - Unixbench Performance Test


    Here are the results, it is Sempron 3000+ AMD Mobile, 500Gig HDD, 512MB RAM with shared ATI Radeon graphics. # # # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # # # # ## # # # #&nb........
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