Weird ATA error

Hi,

I just experienced a weird error with one of the disks of my linux
server box. smartd reported two SMART errors (ErrorCount increased and
SelfTest failed) on /dev/sdd; and indeed, smartctl -A /dev/sdd showed
strange results. Every time I ran it, it returned different and
completely useless values, complete with an invalid SMART checksum. /
var/log/messages kept repeating the following message:

Mar 8 18:59:47 twix kernel: [3035387.933557] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write
cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Mar 8 18:59:47 twix kernel: [3035387.933824] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd]
976773168 512-byte hardware sectors (500108 MB)
Mar 8 18:59:47 twix kernel: [3035387.933954] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write
Protect is off
Mar 8 18:59:47 twix kernel: [3035387.934175] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write
cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.707887] res
51/04:00:00:4f:c2/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x1 (device error)
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.748027] ata4.00: configured for
UDMA/133
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.748040] ata4: EH complete
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.748555] res
51/04:00:00:4f:c2/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x1 (device error)
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.787980] ata4.00: configured for
UDMA/133
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.787991] ata4: EH complete
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.788314] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd]
976773168 512-byte hardware sectors (500108 MB)
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.788497] res
51/04:01:00:4f:c2/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x1 (device error)
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.827943] ata4.00: configured for
UDMA/133
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.827957] ata4: EH complete
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.828178] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write
Protect is off
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.828643] res
51/04:01:01:4f:c2/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x1 (device error)
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.867906] ata4.00: configured for
UDMA/133
Mar 8 18:59:52 twix kernel: [3035393.867920] ata4: EH complete

The disk sdd is a SATA SAMSUNG HD501LJ with firmware CR100-10. There
are two other HD501LJ disks in the system, one with firmware CR100-10,
one with CR100-12. Both of the other HD501LJ's did not report any
error nor did they exhibit the same weird smartctl results. The system
is running Ubuntu 7.10 with kernel 2.6.22-14-server. The board has an
Intel 945 chipset with a 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7) SATA controller.

Funny enough, a reboot fixed the symptoms - now all drives report all
SMART values correctly.

What could be the cause of this? Is this a drive or a controller
error? And, most importantly, is this serious and could it happen
again? I'd greatly appreciate any comments.

Off updating my backups...

- Enno
.

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