Does the corruption happen with different sources to tar/gzip/bzip2?

Does while archiving in verbose mode appear any error message?

What are the commands you run?

Compression errors often occurs because of bad/damaged RAM.

what happens when you do it without compression? As a test, try: tar cf - Mail | tar tvf - Then, if that works with no problems: tar czf - Mail | tar tzvf - If that works, the only thing left that I can think of is serious disk problems... let me know if those commands report errors or not though... J.L. Coenders wrote: >>Does the corruption happen with different sources to tar/gzip/bzip2? > > I am now testing some other sources. It seems to happen with large files. > >>Does while archiving in verbose mode appear any error message? > > No, the archiving itself does not give any messages. The testing does. > >>What are the commands you run? > > $ tar cvzf mail.tar.gz Mail > or > $ tar cvjf mail.tar.bz2 Mail > > For the testing I use: > $ tar tvzf mail.tar.gz > or > $ tar tvjf mail.tar.bz2 > >>Compression errors often occurs because of bad/damaged RAM. > > I do not seem to have other problems, which you would expect with bad or > damaged RAM. > > Jeroen

Sounds like disk problems... but weird ones. Have you fsck'ed lately? Here's a really WEIRD suggestion... try creating an archive, then creating another archive, then seeing if you get the same error on the second one... if there just happens to be a bad spot on the disk where you're trying to create that archive, the first one will take up the space and the second one would hopefully be on a cleaner part of the disk. If you get an error on the second one too, i dunno man... that's pretty weird. Maybe leave those two archives on the disk and fsck? If there is a file with a bad block in it (rather than a bad block in free space) I would think fsck would pick right up on it. J.L. Coenders wrote: > Ok, > I did more extensive tests now. > $tar cf - Mail | tvf - > gives no errors. > > $ tar czf - Mail | tar tzvf - > gives no error either. > > For the mail and for other files. > However, when I start writing to a file, things go wrong: > $ tar tzvf <archive> > starts reporting errors and > $ tar dzf <archive> > starts reporting differences. > > However, when I nfs the files to another computer, I can tar & gzip the > files, the test reports no errors and the difference test reports no > differences. > > But what is strange is that when I tar & gzip from the other computer > over the nfs-mount, it starts giving the errors again. > > Any ideas? > Jeroen > > On Friday 30 April 2004 16:57, Martin Stone wrote: >>what happens when you do it without compression? As a test, try: >> >>tar cf - Mail | tar tvf - >> >>Then, if that works with no problems: >> >>tar czf - Mail | tar tzvf - >> >>If that works, the only thing left that I can think of is serious disk >>problems... let me know if those commands report errors or not though... >> >>J.L. Coenders wrote: >>>>Does the corruption happen with different sources to tar/gzip/bzip2? >>> >>>I am now testing some other sources. It seems to happen with large >>> files. >>> >>>>Does while archiving in verbose mode appear any error message? >>> >>>No, the archiving itself does not give any messages. The testing does. >>> >>>>What are the commands you run? >>> >>>$ tar cvzf mail.tar.gz Mail >>>or >>>$ tar cvjf mail.tar.bz2 Mail >>> >>>For the testing I use: >>>$ tar tvzf mail.tar.gz >>>or >>>$ tar tvjf mail.tar.bz2 >>> >>>>Compression errors often occurs because of bad/damaged RAM. >>> >>>I do not seem to have other problems, which you would expect with bad or >>>damaged RAM. >>> >>>Jeroen

Am Fr, den 30.04.2004 schrieb J.L. Coenders um 21:24: > How can I manually start fsck? Usually it only starts when power fails... > when I try to start manually, it warns me about the device which is > mounting. When I try to unmount, it wont work, probably because it is the > main disk. > > Jeroen touch /forcefsck and then reboot Alexander

Although fsck indicates a lot of problems, I think it is not the disk which is malfunctioning. I have run the Maxtor diagnostics over it and that gave 'a certified functioning device', so no bad sectors or anything. But I ran memtest86 afterwards and discovered that two addresses are broken, so that might be the problem. I am going to get it out today and see if everything will work then. Jeroen

On Friday 30 April 2004 22:00, Alexander Dalloz wrote: >Am Fr, den 30.04.2004 schrieb J.L. Coenders um 21:24: > > >>How can I manually start fsck? Usually it only starts when power fails... >>when I try to start manually, it warns me about the device which is >>mounting. When I try to unmount, it wont work, probably because it is the >>main disk. >> >>Jeroen >> >> >touch /forcefsck > >and then reboot > >Alexander > >