[wplug] HD problems

[Zach]

Hello,

Two day ago I suddenly got lots of I/O and read errors which went to
all consoles on my laptop (Latitude C600 running Debian testing
release with Linux kernel 2.6.18) followed by loud clicking noises
coming from the area where the HD is then the kernel panicked and the
screen froze and I then heard several high pitched beeps and loud
chirping noises like a cricket. This is the small ATA/IDE HD that came
with the laptop (~8 years old, Hitachi Travelstar 08K0851, 20GB). I
tried rebooting and it said it could not load the root filesystem and
complained about error reading disk  and  input/output error and I
heard beeping noises again - 2 quick very sharp beeps ~90 seconds
after it tried loading the / filesystem. I booted into my Ubuntu Live
CD and tried mounting the disk but it gave read error. So I went to a
local computer shop and bought another HD and installed it in the
laptop; I made sure the laptop had no power (battery is dead and I
unplugged power cord) and I used latex gloves and had the laptop on a
wen table when inserting the new drive into the side of the laptop.
It's a Toshiba ATA disk, MK6026 GAX, 60GB, another $60 sigh. That
drive also gave similar read, I/O problems so I suspect it is a bad
hardware controller or maybe even the interface connection. Two drives
both cannot be read. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this
happening before (the HD is god but cannot be read due to fault in the
system's hardware)? I hope whatever is wrong didn't damage the data on
my drives.

Do you know something I could buy that would connect to my small
laptop hard drive and allow me to mount it as an external hard disk? I
found enclosures that come with an interface for IDE 3.5" sized HDs
and connect via USB but nothing for these small laptop HDs - they're
about the size of the palm on the hand and only 0.20" thick.

I was able to install Ubuntu 7.04 onto my external SCSI disk (ATA/IDE
interface enclosure connected to laptop via USB) but my system's BIOS
doesn't seem to recognize/be aware of it and I tried using the Ubuntu
Live CD to do "root=/dev/sda5" but it only seems to be aware of hda
disks and not SCSI disks (or at least not ones connected via USB). I
am wondering if there is anyway I can boot into the Ubuntu
installation on the external disk. That way I'd at least be able to
save files and it would be a lot faster than running from the Live
CD's ramdisk.

The drive's relevant partition table entries:

/dev/sda5, Boot, Logical, Linux ext3, 19GB
/dev/sda6,         Logical, Linux swap,  764MB

And the boot files are:
/initrd.img -> /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-23.386
/vmlinuz -> /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-23-386

The external disk is a Seagate ST380021 A (80GB) and I'm using a Mad
Dog enclosure connected to my USB 1 port.

When I boot into Ubuntu Live CD it automatically finds the disk and
mounts it but unless some USB drivers are loaded at the boot stage I
guess it won't be aware of its' existence but USB drivers are only
loaded when the kernel is booting so it looks like I'm stuck in a
Catch-22 situation. Yet I've heard of people running Linux off USB
{pen,thumb}drives so it must be possible. I am very open to any ideas
at this point. It will likely be another month before I can buy
another machine. I'm glad Ubuntu came with pppoeconf or I wouldn't
have gotten my DSL connection working. I also have an old 10GB IDE
drive I could try in the USB enclosure if you think that would work.

Thanks,
Zach