Frank,Hi All
Over the weekend I lost my 3rd HD using MC under Mandrake 10.1 in 2 different computers.
In each case MC was being used to search or move a directory that had over 100 data files with over 2 GB of data.
In the last instance Saturday morning I was transferring a directory with over 5 GB of data from /home/branch/My_Pictures {Data directory being moved which consisted of .jpg files} to /System_Data/My_Picture by the normal method of MC file transfer.
In all 3 cases something is wiped out the partition structure. What is unknown as at this point the issue is above my knowledge level.
In the latest incident after discovering that the computer had stall and was completely non functional I discovered that the contents of the root partition was corrupted.
At this point it should be noted that there was NO data on this box that was not all so on several other boxes so saving HD data was not a consideration.
Attempts to recover and restore the system by installation of Mandrake 10.1 disk and doing a custom installation where one defined the partition showed the existence of all partitions those being
/boot
/
<swap>
/home
/System_Data
Next stage in set up is to format partitions.
At that point the installation fails with the notice that installation could not find the root partation.
Not being content with that I then attempted to reconfigure the partitions to one giant HD partition with the intent of reformatting the complete HD and then repartitioning the HD.
Results of removing /boot, <swap>, /home, and /System_Data partations was that installation was unable to identify HD giving same error message as previously received for root directory.
Two weeks previously I had been using MC to search for a number of test DB that I had on the system. These test DB were all of the 1 to 5 line variety with names all starting with test-XX where XX was 00 to 20 plus located in half a dozen different directories having been written at various times over several months. The object was to collect them all into one place. Anyway the search criteria was set to start at / and I was searching for test*. Half way through one of the directories the computer froze. Closer inspection revealed that the root directory was trashed. Attempts to recover showed the same conditions as noted above. System configuration unable to find root directory and unable to format that directory.
Both of the above incidents occurred in my desktop.
Last October I was attempting to move files using MC in my laptop. Details of what I did due to time and conditions are fuzzy so one could say a number of things including operator error but then this was followed by two incident where more detail observations were made.
Anyway last October the HD showed all the same symptoms as shown above. First the root directory departed with installation unable to find the existence of that directory and then the rest of the system departed as I attempted to recovery from that. At that time I took the HD to a number [if memory serves me correct 5 different groups] linux clubs meetings [1 meeting per club]
A number of real Linus and Unix people looked at it with a large variety of different tools. The consensus of all was that that HD which did have critical non backed up data on it was trashed and beyond salvage.
Thus my conclusion is that if other are having similar experiences that there is something that is causing Midnight Commander in Mandrake to do something {the details of which are above my knowledge level} that is causing partitions to corrupt when MC is placed under heavy search of file transfer mode.
If others are not having similar experiences then there must be something corrupted in my Mandrake 10.1 disks. This also is something that is not unheard of as I had that very issue with Mandrake 9.2 CDs in as much as the system would install and run but each installation had a different set of unexplainable omissions or failures. This after time was finally tracked down to a bad set of CD in as much as those CD would install on some systems and not on other identical systems.
Thank Frank
What do the systems have in common? I suspect a problem with your setup, more then a problem with mc. I have used mc for years, on many systems, and I have never had that type of problem. I have transfered large files, and large numbers of small files, all without problems. I have transfered 5GB of files at a time more then once.
The only time I have seen your type of problem was on a systems with other problems/ One system had marginal hardware - it would fail under heavy load. The other system had a problem with hard drive geometry. The end results were that you could overwrite the extended partition table when using too much of the swap partition. I still don't know how the guy that set it up managed that...
A more common cause of corruption is when you have shrunk a Windows partition with some of the older tools. Windows would not notice the change, and would happily write to the entire old partition space, regardless of the new setup. I have never tested to see how Linux handles things where the FAT says one things, and the Partition table says something else... I have also heard that partitioning a system first with Linux, and then installing Windows can cause problems...
Mikkel --
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
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