A few months ago she bought a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500 GB loaded with firmware SD15. This specific firmware is known to be buggy and Seagate has provided a firmware upgrade for them, but of course she had no idea about that bug. Everything was OK until one day, suddenly, the BIOS couldn’t detect the disk. It didn’t take her long to find out the cause of the problem…

After several failed attempts to upgrade her firmware following the instructions placed at Seagate’s site she decided to send her disk to Greek companies that specialized on data recovery. One of them broke the seals of her disk but failed(!!) to do anything else. The other companies, asked a serious amount of money, 200-1000 Euros(!!!) in order to handle her case/take a preliminary look at the disk.

Fed up with those companies she finally decided to contact Seagate herself and she was given instructions via telephone to complete the online application form for technical support and data recovery.

The very next day, a courier took her disk, delivered it to Seagate Labs at Amsterdam and within a week, she had her disk brought back, totally repaired, with all her data intact(!!). Everything was free and her data was saved.

So the next time you have a hard disk problem, especially if it is a Seagate disk, contact Seagate before contacting these “specialized data recovery companies”. sigh.

Too bad I don’t have as much free time as I had in the past to post about interesting things. It’s a also a time for a redesign…I think I have the same theme for more than 5 years…

Anyway, GrRBL got redesigned yesterday by Christine and now there’s also a submission form for those who prefer it over forwarding emails. I also merged my other Greek spammers email addresses blacklist with lists by a couple of friends (postmasters) and now the list contains over 300 unique, verified, spammer addresses. This list is not yet public but if you are interested to use it and test it, give me a shout and I’ll give you access.

Επιτέλους μας την έπεσαν

to summarize, from least expensive to most expensive (tax included):
US: 843€
UK:1049€
Spain: 1149€
Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal: 1199€
Sweden: 1266€
Greece: 1294€
Norway: 1304€

Now, should I be happy or sad that in my country it costs a lot more than most other European countries ? It surely costs more than any other country in the Euro zone. If someone takes into account that the minimal monthly payment here in Greece is at 600€, then this macbook here in Greece costs more than 2 months of work. Shouldn’t the price be exactly the same as all other countries in the Euro zone since we are using Euros (€)? What’s the big deal with Greece ? Even the site looks different than all others.. :S

To see what’s all that just click the image and check the notes of flickr.

I tag dstergiou, hsoc, stsimb and thatha

Όπως κάποιος θα παρατηρεί, το ειδοποιητήριο αναφέρει επάνω του:

“Παρακαλούμε όπως επικοινωνήσετε μαζί μας στο ανωτέρω τηλέφωνο για την παραλαβή το ταχύτερο δυνατόν.”

Αν βλέπει κανείς τηλέφωνο επάνω στο ειδοποιητήριο να μου το πει και μένα…
Ανοίγω Firefox, πηγαίνω στο site της ACS, click στο “Καταστήματα” και εμφανίζεται ένας ωραιότατος χάρτης σε Flash. Clickety click στο νομό, ανοίγει νέα σελίδα με κανένα κατάστημα…Clickety click σε άλλο νομό, τα ίδια… ξανά click στο δικό μου νομό…πάλι τίποτα. Βλέπω ένα link “εργαλείο αναζήτησης”..το χρησιμοποιώ, βρίσκω το τηλέφωνο του καταστήματος και τηλεφωνώ

- Γεια σας, τηλεφωνώ σχετικά με μία παραλαβή. Στο ειδοποιητήριο αναφέρει ότι προβλέπονται 3 προσπάθειες παράδοσης. Πότε μπορείτε να το φέρετε ξανά το δέμα ?
- Αύριο.
- Μπορώ να έρθω να το παραλάβω μόνος μου σήμερα ? Και αν ναι, μέχρι τι ώρα είστε ανοιχτά ?
- Ναι, μπορείτε. Είμαστε ανοιχτά μέχρι τις 19:30.

Η ώρα ήταν ήδη 17:00 οπότε αποφασίζω να πάω προς το μαγαζί. Παίρνω την ταυτότητά μου αλλά ξεχνάω το ειδοποιητήριο σπίτι. Φτάνω εκεί, μπαίνω μέσα και ήταν μια υπάλληλος:

- Τι θα θέλατε ?
- Έχω λάβει μια ειδοποίηση για ένα δέμα.
- Έχετε το ειδοποιητήριο μαζί σας ?
- Όχι, το ξέχασα..
- Το όνομά σας ?
- ΧΧΧ…
- Μισό λεπτό…
(το ψάχνει για 20-30 δευτερόλεπτα, βρίσκει το δέμα και το φέρνει)
- Μένετε στην οδό ΥΥΥ ?
- Ναί, ΥΥΥ αριθμός ΖΖΖ.
- Βάλτε ολόκληρο το ονομά σας και υπογράψτε εδώ…
(συμπληρώνω τα στοιχεία μου και υπογράφω)
- Ορίστε (μου δίνει το δέμα)

και έτσι έφυγα από την ACS με ένα δέμα χωρίς να μου ζητηθεί καν ταυτότητα.

Θα μπορούσε κάποιος πολύ άνετα να πάρει το χαρτάκι από την πόρτα της πολυκατοικίας, το οποίο αναφέρει το όνομα του παραλήπτη, να πάει στην ACS και να πάρει το δέμα μου χωρίς εγώ να πάρω χαμπάρι. Δεν θα έπρεπε να με είχε πάρει τηλέφωνο κάποιος από την ACS αφού δεν με βρήκαν σπίτι για να με ειδοποιήσουν για την αποτυχημένη παραλαβή ? Πραγματική ασφάλεια…

Περισσότερες λεπτομέρειες για το τι είναι το Open Coffee καθώς και για παλιότερα events μπορείτε να διαβάσετε στο site του Open Coffee.

Μακάρι να πάει καλά και να έρθει αρκετός κόσμος. Είναι μια καλή ευκαιρία για κάποιον να ακούσει και να ανταλλάξει καινούργιες ιδέες καθώς και να γνωρίσει κόσμο με κοινά ενδιαφέροντα. Θα τα πούμε εκεί!

Την Τετάρτη 23 Απριλίου του 2008 στη Θεσσαλονίκη θα διεξαχθεί συνάντηση για συλλογή/ανταλλαγή υπογραφών σε pgp/gpg κλειδιά. Για τη συμμετοχή σας θα χρειαστείτε κάποιο επίσημο έγγραφο που να πιστοποιεί την ταυτότητα που αντιστοιχεί στο κλειδί σας, και αρκετά αντίγραφα από το ψηφιακό δακτυλικό αποτύπωμα του κλειδιού σας και του ονόματός σας γραμμένα σε χαρτί.

Περισσότερες πληροφορίες για τη διαδικασία που θα ακολουθηθεί (Informal Method Party) υπάρχουν εδώ.

Το ακριβές μέρος και η ώρα θα ανακοινωθούν μέσα τις επόμενες μέρες.
Το meeting θα γίνει μάλλον σε cafe της πόλης ώστε να μπορέσουμε να συζητήσουμε και να γνωριστούμε καλύτερα.

Όσοι πιθανώς ενδιαφέρονται ας κάνουν ένα comment εδώ ή στο blog του Πάτροκλου για να μετράμε συμμετοχές έστω και στο περίπου.

*Update*
Ημερομηνία συνάντησης: Τετάρτη 23/04/2008
Ώρα: 16:30
Μέρος: Καμάρα Θεσσαλονίκης

You are all welcome to join!

Gentoo Users in Greece

Creating a code is easy, there are a bunch of ways to do it. Nokia has a generator offering two modes, Datamatrix (default) and QR (look at the bottom of the page): http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/create.jsp.

Reading the code is quite easy too. You just need a code reader for your mobile phone. Nokia’s reader couldn’t work on my Nokia N70 but Kaywa Reader worked just fine. Go the their site, login with bugmenot and download the reader for your own mobile phone.

Then just play with it.

Here’s how it looks like:

Weird(?) thing is that I couldn’t find any applications for linux (open source if possible) to able to “ocr” the images and provide output of the code inside them. Do you know any ?

Last week I left the city I live to go to Athens, Greece where fosscomm was taking place. When I returned I checked the logs of my machines and in one of them I found this:


hdi: lost interrupt
hdi: status error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdi: status error: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdi: no DRQ after issuing MULTWRITE_EXT
hdi: status error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdi: status error: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdi: no DRQ after issuing MULTWRITE_EXT
hdi: status error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdi: status error: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdi: no DRQ after issuing MULTWRITE_EXT
hdi: status error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdi: status error: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
pdc202xx_new: Primary channel reset.
hdi: no DRQ after issuing MULTWRITE_EXT
ide4: reset: success
hdi: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdi: DMA timeout error
hdi: dma timeout error: status=0x80 { Busy }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdi: DMA disabled
pdc202xx_new: Primary channel reset.
ide4: reset: success
hdi: lost interrupt
md: super_written gets error=-5, uptodate=0
raid5: Disk failure on hdi1, disabling device. Operation continuing on 5 devices


This the fourth crashed WD drive in 2 months! It’s not an april fool’s joke.. it’s still 31st of March..


Model Family: Western Digital Caviar SE family
Device Model: WDC WD2000JB-55GVA0
Serial Number: WD-WCALL1025118


Of course it’s out of warranty. Again.

As Fuzz said, this whole thing must be a logic timebomb planted inside WD disks years ago to force us move to SSD drives.

I’m getting pretty tired of it though…

Ok it’s not so recent (12/Nov/2007)…but it hasn’t changed at all since then

It’s Fluxbox with ROX Desktop and of course it’s Gentoo!

Interested in what comzeradd, agorf and Charmed[] have for desktop ?

2 weeks ago I returned from a trip to Athens. I checked my mails where I get reports from ossec on various servers I manage. One of these mails reported that a RAID5 array with 6×200Gb disks was degraded due to a hard disk failure. Yes, it was a Western Digital, again. Model Number:WD2000JB, manufacture date: 26 AUG 2004. I had another 200Gb drive at home where I keep my backups. Since I couldn’t afford the risk of not having a spare disk for my home backups, I bought a Seagate ST3500320AS. Since the new disk was 500Gb I copied all my data from the “spare” 200Gb disk and also made a full backup of my boot disk which is 120Gb. I then replaced the faulty 200Gb on the server with the “spare” 200Gb drive I had at home.

On Thursday I came back from an one-week trip, this time to my hometown. All was fine until Friday noon. Then I tried to open a text file inside my home dir (which is a seperate partition on my boot disk) that I keep some random notes and the machine started crawling. I couldn’t open the file. I tried to copy the file to another disk without success. I only got some beautiful I/O errors on the terminal and DMA errors on the syslog. Guess what! The disk was a Western Digital 1200JB with manufacture date: 14 DEC 2001. Under different circumstances I would cry at my bad luck…but the only thing I could do was laugh. I couldn’t stop laughing about this mess. I placed the 500Gb Seagate on a external USB case and started to rsync the root dir on top of my 2 weeks ago rsync. A couple of files couldn’t be read from the boot disk but they were already on the “backup” so I saved everything. Since I had no spare disk left at home I went out and bought another hard disk. I couldn’t find any 250 or 320Gb Seagate drives so I bought another 500Gb Seagate ST3500320AS. What was funny was that the salesman at the local store tried to convince me to buy a Western Digital 320Gb without success of course, I wonder why…
I placed the new 500Gb disk in my box, booted iloog, partitioned the disk and rsync-ed my data from the “old” 500Gb disk to the new.

YES, I am using smartctl/smartd on all of my boxes even at home. Smartctl was not showing ANY errors at all before the first DMA errors appeared on syslog. I am regularly testing all my disks with smartctl’s tests: short, long and conveyance (where it’s supported)

The first disk is in complete unusable form right now. I tried partitioning it and formatting it but it moans painfully when it is accessed. It currently shows more than 100 S.M.A.R.T. errors. It’s dead.
The second one has about 4-5 S.M.A.R.T. errors logged. It doesn’t make any strange noises when operating but I haven’t extensively tested it yet. It surely cannot be trusted…
The third disk has bad sectors and about 20 S.M.A.R.T. errors. Most of them were “created” during the check for bad blocks process and every time a bad arrea is accessed more errors are added to the log. During operation it makes an annoying sound which is like scratching metal parts against each other.
Funny thing is what smartcl reports for all disks, even for the first one:

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

I am well aware that all disks were over their guarantee (3 years), that’s why I was keeping backups (of important stuff) over separate disks, but I don’t think I’ll be buying any Western Digital drives in the near future…I need some time to get over this month of crashes…

Any other Western Digital haters out there ?

A great deal of those companies correct these errors as soon as someone finds them.
A few companies correct them as soon as they can. But that can sometimes take months.
One company not only does it not correct the errors it makes, it tries to standardize them.

It’s not about how big or small an error is…it’s about the attitude.