Problem: 6TB hard drive totally messed up

LybsterKodi · August 1, 2022 at 11:03 AM

I bought a new Seagate 6TB HDD for the RPi4, spent a couple of days formatting and copying stuff (even with USB 3 it takes a while) and hooked onto the Pi. Installed Kodi, set up the sources, had a break for f00d turning things off. When I turned back on the HDD was corrupted.

On the RPi3 its Seagate 6TB is formatted to NTFS so that's what I used for the new one.

1. Any ideas on why it corrupted? Yes I know its a "how long is a piece of string" question but I just wondered if there are any common causes.

2. Should I format to ExFat?

Sorry to be picky about this again but why is f00d a banned word?

**heitbaum** · August 1, 2022 at 12:14 PM

Which LE are you running?

LE11 uses NTFS3 while <=LE10 uses NTFS3G

What errors did you get? What was the corruption?

As a note - there is still a lack of fsck.ntfs3.

LybsterKodi · August 1, 2022 at 12:44 PM

"Which LE are you running?"

LE 11 nightly from 30/07/22

"What errors did you get? What was the corruption?"

The Kodi simply told me my sources were empty and would I like to open the files section. When I tried to reset the sources I could navigate to the disk but not down to the folders.

Windows when I plugged in told me there was corruption and offered to scan and fix. I opted to run CHKDSK and was shown the most index errors I've ever encountered. Ran CHKDSK /f and ended up with an apparently blank disk.

I'm currently carrying out a full format - 6TB will take a while.

I also had another thought - LE & Kodi are on a separate SSD, the Seagate is used purely for media split into folders - Films, Music videos and Records would Kodi (or LibreElec) even write to the Seagate? If not then there must be another cause.

**heitbaum** · August 1, 2022 at 3:00 PM

LE wouldn’t be writing to the 6TB in the scenario you point out.

Here is what would have been mounted as a guess?

/flash

/storage

/var/media/SeagateSomething

LE would be busy using /storage/ .kodi .config …

Unless you had something specifically configured (addons) or some configuration. lE shouldn’t have been writing to the “SeagateSomething” disk at the time. We’re you copying files across to the drive via samba….

All guesses, but hope the info helps you piece together what may have been happening.

LybsterKodi · August 1, 2022 at 3:12 PM

Very useful - thanks.

I used my Windows PC to copy from my current backup, a 2TB HDD and a 3TB HDD so all that had been done, the libraries updated and a backup made which to me, with the info you've supplied, says an external event.

Once I've copied all the files back across I'll download whatever the latest nightly is and have another go.

I'm hoping to get everything up and running before October which is the 1st anniversary of starting the process <VBG>

GDPR-7 · August 1, 2022 at 4:21 PM

Quote from LybsterKodi

spent a couple of days formatting and copying stuff (even with USB 3 it takes a while)

pulling the drives out of their housings and temp. putting them into your PC and using TeraCopy (with verify [for a copying during night [*]] !) wasn't doable ?

[*] hibernation/suspend should be OFF then

windows command line with admin rights: "powercfg -H off" for the first

suspend: - don't know -, but "powercfg /?" should show what to do)

TeraCopy for Windows - Code Sector

so it could fit with already 1st Sept ...

P.S.

AFAIK, under linux you need a partprobe run or a reboot after building a new FAT (file allocation table) and before copying ...

tokul · August 1, 2022 at 5:41 PM

you probably supplied insufficient power to the drive.

LybsterKodi · August 2, 2022 at 11:59 AM

Quote from JoeAverage

pulling the drives out of their housings and temp. putting them into your PC and using TeraCopy (with verify [for a copying during night [*]] !) wasn't doable ?

Not really since a) I don't have a desktop (3 laptops) and b) I'd need to wreck at least one case (not sure about the others but can't see any screws)

Quote from tokul

you probably supplied insufficient power to the drive.

That's a distinct possibility. I've never seen so much damage done from that before.

frye · August 2, 2022 at 10:20 PM

I have a USB 3 Seagate drive 6TB. Possibly very similar. And had a little trouble getting it working properly. What I did was :

- plugged it into windows, downloaded a Seagate utility and enabled the drive allowing itself to sleep or spin down. (can't remember why I though or how I knew that it didn't)

- reformatted to ext4. Because at the time the processor use while copying seemed unreasonably high using NTFS.

- plugged it into a powered hub, which is almost certainly what fixed my issues. But I had an SSD plugged in as well.

Been working flawlessly ever since for 2 years.

GDPR-7 · August 2, 2022 at 11:40 PM

Quote from frye

reformatted to ext4

If I got it right: he is using windows (?)

I would prefer btrfs than ext4 cause of, amongst others, no FS check needed when power got lost (AFAIK)

tokul · August 3, 2022 at 6:16 AM

Quote from LybsterKodi

> you probably supplied insufficient power to the drive.
That's a distinct possibility. I've never seen so much damage done from that before.

I had two 1TB WDs connected once. Was sorting files on them, drive started clicking, failed. Required CLI dskchk in windows to get it fixed.

Technically they were connected to x86 pc and not to RPi, but they were sharing connection on same USB3 header and RPi is known to have limited power output on USB.

Your story sounded like my two hour long dskchk multipled by six times.

I won't try connecting HDD enclosures that rely on single USB connection to RPi or x86 USB sockets connected to same header.

GDPR-7 · August 3, 2022 at 7:15 PM

Quote from tokul

drive started clicking

... in combination with iterating spin up and down sound from the drive I would thinking buying a new drive

tokul · August 4, 2022 at 4:22 PM

Quote from JoeAverage

... in combination with iterating spin up and down sound from the drive I would thinking buying a new drive

It was behaving that way cause two enclosures attached to same header were drawing to much power.

If your car runs out of lube (proper word is on ban list), you don't buy new car. And you don't buy new car, if you have other three in garage.

GDPR-7 · August 5, 2022 at 6:16 PM

my keywords were "... in combination"

had such a drive fixed attached in a box: constantly clicking with spinning up/down all the time

smartmontools and Internet suggested a new one ...

that all I want to express

LybsterKodi · August 13, 2022 at 12:27 PM

Thanks to everyone. I did buy a new disk but that's mainly to make the switch from RPi3 to RPi4 less traumatic and to give me an easier backup disk later on.

GDPR-7 · August 13, 2022 at 10:29 PM

I'm not the world favorite english speaker, but I guess that should read " I bought ..." or even "I have bought"

- me is unsure -

anyway, care to mark this thread as resolved ?

**heitbaum** · August 14, 2022 at 3:10 AM

Quote from JoeAverage

I'm not the world favorite english speaker, but I guess that should read " I bought ..." or even "I have bought"
- me is unsure -

As I was word-smithing another sentence - what about “I purchased …” It is a cold Sunday morning here alongside the beach, and not much else to do here, and my Football (AFL) team lost last night :-(. Have a great day all.

GDPR-7 · August 14, 2022 at 5:07 AM

"purchased" is really the best.

I hope this helps with the "pain" caused by the football team ?!