Error halted execution

[susfour]

SD has been running great. Over the weekend, I was using my PB to test another external FW drive that was giving me grief on another workstation. Since then, my nightly SD smart updates have failed with this log:

|07:43:30 AM|Error| ditto: /Volumes/Big D/usr/X11R6/bin/.BC.u6b5vd: Invalid argument
[***] Tuesday, September 06, 2005 08:18:30 AM America/Chicago
|08:18:31 AM|Info| SuperDuper!, version 74, path: /Applications/SuperDuper!.app, OS: 10.3.9 (7W98)
|08:18:31 AM|Info| Source Drive: /, name: Ginger's HD, device: /dev/disk0s10 type: hfs, OS: 10.3.9 (7W98), capacity: 74.43 GB, used: 32.96 GB, directories: 63552, files: 370758
|08:18:31 AM|Info| Target Drive: /Volumes/Big D, name: Big D, device: /dev/disk1s10 type: hfs, OS: N/A, capacity: 0.00 GB, used: 0.00 GB, directories: 0, files: 0
|08:18:31 AM|Info| Copy Mode : Smart Update
|08:18:31 AM|Info| Copy Script : Backup - all files.dset
|08:18:31 AM|Info| Transcript : BuildTranscript.plist
|08:18:31 AM|Info| PHASE: Volume Preparation
|08:18:31 AM|Info| ...ACTION: Enable Permissions
|08:18:31 AM|Info| ......COMMAND => Enabling permissions on Ginger's HD
|08:18:31 AM|Info| Refreshing Disk Arbitration ...
|08:18:31 AM|Info| ......COMMAND => Verifying that permissions are enabled for Ginger's HD
|08:18:32 AM|Info| Permissions on '/' are enabled.
|08:18:32 AM|Info| ......COMMAND => Enabling permissions on Big D
|08:18:32 AM|Info| Refreshing Disk Arbitration ...
|08:18:32 AM|Error| vsdbutil: Couldn't get volume information for '/Volumes/Big D': Device not configured

What might have happened?

[dnanian]

Well, that looks to me like the device is failing whenever it's refreshed -- when you see "Device not configured", it means that the "mount point" -- the place the system puts the 'virtual folder' that represents the drive -- isn't responding to commands given to it.

What kind of drive is this?

[susfour]

I ran DiskUtility's repair and DiskWarrior, but still getting the failure.

Originally Posted by dnanian

What kind of drive is this?

:

Capacity: 74.53 GB
Manufacturer: GVP OXFW911PI001Rev0.2 102302
Model:
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk5
OS9 Drivers: Yes
Speed: 400 Mb/sec Speed
Unit Spec Id: 24734
Firmware Revision:
Unit Software Version: 10483

Big D:

Capacity: 54.99 GB
Available: 24.26 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk5s10
Mount Point: /Volumes/Big D 1

little d:

Capacity: 19.29 GB
Available: 3.16 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk5s12
Mount Point: /Volumes/little d

[dnanian]

OK, from this I can see that the drive *has* failed before -- you can see that it's now mounted at "Big D 1" rather than "Big D".

To clean up the mount points, restart the machine. Then, give the backup another shot -- but, before you do, check the manufacturer to see if there's a firmware update available for the drive. You might also want to consider using Disk Utility to erase *AND ZERO* the data and free space, to ensure that all bad sectors are remapped.

[susfour]

After a restart, SD! performed a successful automatic execution last night. The mount point shows Big D now. IYO, should I be concerned with this drive or was this just a bad mounting situation?

[dnanian]

It's very hard to say, unfortunately: the fact that it completed a successful backup is a good thing... the fact that it's failed before isn't. Certainly, the backup is likely good. I'd keep an eye on it -- if you notice it changing its mount point again, or if your backups fail, I'd swap that puppy out for a different one (likely a different case).