Ubuntu – External drive causes all processes talking to it to freeze. Has the drive failed

hard drivemount

My external drive cannot be accessed. It seems that the auto-mount hangs. When I click "Mount", I get "unable to access volume – an operation is already pending." When I try to remove the drive, I get: "Unable to Stop WCD – Error opening /dev/sdb for fsync: Device or resource busy."

fdisk -l /dev/sdb hangs.

dmesg contains the following recent warnings:

task scsi_eh_6:5019 blocked for more than 120 seconds
...
task fdisk blocked for more than 120 seconds
...
task mount:5301 blocked for more than 120 seconds
...
task pool-udisksd:5059 blocked for more than 120 seconds

Etc. Every time I try to access the drive, the process trying to access it hangs and can't access it. I tried to run badblocks, and even it froze after twenty minutes – badblocks blocked for more than 120 seconds, etc.

I am not sure what kind of hardware problem causes every process trying to talk to the disk (including all diagnostic tools) to freeze. None of them can be terminated by Ctrl-C, I have to exit the terminal. What should I do?

Update:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Blue
Device Model:     WDC WD10EZEX-08WN4A0
Serial Number:    WD-WCC6Y0KC7LX4
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 20e20948d
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Form Factor:      3.5 inches
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 3b
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Thu Sep 26 17:46:58 2019 CDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Status command failed: Connection timed out
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Warning: This result is based on an Attribute check.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x82) Offline data collection activity
                    was completed without error.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                    without error or no self-test has ever 
                    been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:        (12000) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:            (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                    Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                    Suspend Offline collection upon new
                    command.
                    Offline surface scan supported.
                    Self-test supported.
                    Conveyance Self-test supported.
                    Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                    power-saving mode.
                    Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time:    (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    ( 124) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:          (0x3035) SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   199   198   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       67
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   174   173   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       2283
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   092   092   000    Old_age   Always       -       8792
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   078   078   000    Old_age   Always       -       16789
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       21
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       9
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   197   197   000    Old_age   Always       -       9697
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   115   102   000    Old_age   Always       -       28
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   199   199   000    Old_age   Always       -       166
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   199   000    Old_age   Offline      -       76
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       83

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Command "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line
mode" failed: Connection timed out

The gnome-disks utility says that the Ext4 filesystem on the disk is undamaged, and the smartctl tests just return "connection timed out." So what's up?

Best Answer

The important values to look at are:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   199   198   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       67
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   115   102   000    Old_age   Always       -       28
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   199   199   000    Old_age   Always       -       166
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   199   000    Old_age   Offline      -       76
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       83

This indicates that no bad blocks have been relocated yet, but that 166 blocks are suspect, and causing raw read errors, and uncorrectable errors.

You need to manually scan your HDD for bad blocks, and then let it remap bad blocks for you.

Note: do NOT abort a bad block scan!

Note: do NOT bad block a SSD

Note: backup your important files FIRST!

Note: this will take many hours

Note: you may have a pending HDD failure

Boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB.

In terminal...

sudo fdisk -l # identify all "Linux Filesystem" partitions

Note: if fdisk hangs for you, then try identifying your Ubuntu ext4 partition(s) using gparted.

sudo e2fsck -fcky /dev/sdXX # read-only test

or

sudo e2fsck -fccky /dev/sdXX # non-destructive read/write test (recommended)

The -k is important, because it saves the previous bad block table, and adds any new bad blocks to that table. Without -k, you loose all of the prior bad block information.

The -fccky parameter...

   -f     Force checking even if the file system seems clean.

   -c     This option causes e2fsck to use badblocks(8) program  to  do  a
          read-only  scan  of  the device in order to find any bad blocks.
          If any bad blocks are found, they are added  to  the  bad  block
          inode  to  prevent them from being allocated to a file or direc‐
          tory.  If this option is specified twice,  then  the  bad  block
          scan will be done using a non-destructive read-write test.

   -k     When combined with the -c option, any existing bad blocks in the
          bad blocks list are preserved, and any new bad blocks  found  by
          running  badblocks(8)  will  be added to the existing bad blocks
          list.

   -y     Assume  an answer of `yes' to all questions; allows e2fsck to be
          used non-interactively.  This option may not be specified at the
          same time as the -n or -p options.
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