scanner flaking out

[bogstad-e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org (Bill Bogstad)]

On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 12:03 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 03/11/2011 11:31 AM, Laura Conrad wrote:
>> Recently, when I scan, I'm often missing a piece of the page. ?I notice
>> that this happens when the disk drive is also busy doing something else,
>> like a backup.
>>
>> I don't remember this happening until the last couple of weeks. ?Do you
>> think:
>>
>> ? ? ? ? My scanner is dying
>>
>> ? ? ? ? My disk drive is dying
>>
>> ? ? ? ? I'm just scanning and/or backing up more often
>>
>> I'm most concerned about the second possibility -- I would want to do
>> something about the drive before it died. ?If the scanner died, I could
>> usually either wait or convince someone else to do it for me.
>>
> Laura, I advise you to get a new disk drive ASAP. SATA drives are
> relatively inexpensive. But, if both are causing troubles, it could
> possibly be your mother board. In any case, make sure you have a good
> backup of your data whether a local backup to media or an online backup
> to one of the online backup sites that have been discussed here. I knew
> one of my drives was going bad a few years ago, and I failed to replace
> it before it failed, and it cost me some $$ to do a recovery.

Having backups is always a good idea, but I think this is jumping to
conclusions.  At a minimum, check
your various system log files (in /var/log) for errors related to your
disk (hd* or sd*).  While you are at it,
check to see if there are any errors related to your scanner (probably USB).

Install smartctl/smartmontools and use them to query your disk
directly for recent error logs.

As far as backups go, I would suggest getting an external USB drive to
be used solely for backups and setting
up automated backups using cron/crontabs.  The one truism about
backups is that if it requires human intervention
it probably doesn't happen.

Bill Bogstad