Possible solution to random crashes

[Jerry Feldman]

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Don't use fdisk alone to resize a Linux partition. To shrink a Linux 
partition, you first must shrink the file system, then use fdisk. It is 
better to use a tool, sich as gparted or qtparted that will do both. 
There is an resize2fs for ext2/3.

One possibility for you is to reformat the swap partition by first 
turning swap off with swapoff, then use mkswap on that partition. Did 
you my any chance change the size of the swap partition?
But, this also might be an indication of an impending disk failure. In 
any case, I would reformat the existing swap partition and see if there 
is a recurrence.

On 09/23/2008 06:32 PM, Don Levey wrote:
| Some may recall that a while ago I had mentioned that my machine seemed
| to crash at random times.  There were a number of suspects, all shot
| down in turn: video driver, X settings, Thunar file manager.  I have a
| new candidate, and so far it seems to fit the problem.
|
| Careful examination of the log files revealed messages such as:
|
| Sep 22 17:38:57 dauphin kernel: Read-error on swap-device (8:16:239638369)
| Sep 22 17:38:57 dauphin kernel: ata1.01: error: { IDNF }
| Sep 22 17:38:57 dauphin kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector
| 239638313
|
| Sometimes I can be a little thick, but it looks to me like the partition
| I'm using for swap has bad sectors that are interfering with proper
| operation.  Sometimes this results in a hard freeze, sometimes in a
| reboot, sometimes in a restart of X (as happened yesterday).
|
| When I set up this machine, I set it up as a Windows/Linux dual-boot.  I
| can't recall the last time I used the Windows partitions; I think
| perhaps 4 years ago.  Clearly I don't need that.  I've got two hard
| drives in the machine, /dev/sda is (mostly) for Windows.  I've got the
| /boot partition there, and a partition originally intended as a shared
| drive between the systems.  My /dev/sdb is where most of Linux lives:
|
| Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
| /dev/sdb1             59515524  12024396  44419100  22% /
| /dev/sdb3             26027260  19614368   5069460  80% /home
| /dev/sdb2             30701264  12715872  17985392  42% /export
| /dev/sda3              1019240     46484    920144   5% /boot
| tmpfs                   777532         0    777532   0% /dev/shm
|
| The swap partition is, as can be seen in the errors above, on /dev/sdb
| (sdb5).  The other drive looks like this (from fdisk):
|
|    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
| /dev/sda1   *           1        3060    24579418+   7  HPFS/NTFS
| /dev/sda2            3061        4723    13358047+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
| /dev/sda3            4724        4854     1052257+  83  Linux
| /dev/sda5            3061        4723    13358016    7  HPFS/NTFS
|
| Is it reasonable to resize the sda5 partition down a gig or two and make
| a new swap partition in the remainder?  I don't think there's any useful
| data on the sda5 partition at the moment.  If this seems doable, the
| plan would be to:
|
| 1) run 'swapoff'
| 2) run 'fdisk' to resize /dev/sda5
| 3) create swap partition on remainder of sda5
| 4) edit /etc/fstab to change the swap device from sdb5 to sda6
| 5) run 'swapon -a' to (re)mount the new swap partition
| 6) resume normal operation
|
| Does this seem reasonable?  While I'm at it I may simply wipe the other
| partitions on sda (other than /boot) and reformat for extra storage.
|
| Thanks in advance,
|  -Don

- --
Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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