Ubuntu file system going into "lockdown" mode

[Bill Bogstad]

On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 8:32 AM,  <edwardp-mh2Nk+tgbQM at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Richard Pieri wrote:
>> Either save your syslog files on a different disk entirely (USB flash drive, perhaps) or to a syslog server so that when the fault happens again it can be recorded.
>>
>
> I looked at the last-saved syslog file (syslog.1) and there were only
> two items that would seem to indicate what looks like an error.  Both of
> these were repeated in the syslog with different timestamps:
>
>> Oct  3 18:57:45 ubuntu kernel: [   83.925182] ata1.00: error: { ICRC
>> ABRT }
>> Oct  3 18:58:45 ubuntu kernel: [  143.894672] ata1.00: failed command:
>> READ DMA

Google is your friend....

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Libata_error_messages

says:

ICRC	Interface CRC error during Ultra DMA transfer - often either a
bad cable or power problem, though possibly an incorrect Ultra DMA
mode setting by the driver

Which was referenced in this thread:

http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Kernel/2008-06/msg04447.html

That is exactly the kind of error which will cause the kernel to put
the disk into read-only mode.   If you are lucky, it could just be a
bad cable or power supply (as suggested).   I suspect
that a bad interface on the drive or motherboard could cause those
errors as well.   You might try doing massive amounts of read IO to
see if you can force the problem to occur.
(Something like "dd < /dev/hd.... > /dev/null.)   If you can force the
problem to occur, then try replacing the cable and try to force an
error again.  If it doesn't happen, then you are done.
If not, I would personally not spend that much more time on hardware
that old (32bit Athlon with max of 512Mbyte of RAM?); but you could
start swapping out the other relevant parts:
power supply, motherboard, drive.

Bill Bogstad

P.S. You probably have multiple ATA connectors on your motherboard.
If so, it might be possible to move the drive to the other connector.
It sounds like this is the only hard drive in the system so the other
connector may be free.  I can't remember if typical BIOSes will boot
from the second ATA interface so this might not help much.  Also, the
drive names/numbers would change so your grub config file and
/etc/fstab might need to be modified to point to the new interface.