"smartd dead but subsys locked"

[Gregory E. Garland]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:redhat-install-list->
> bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Rick Stevens
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 12:56 PM
> To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> Subject: Re: "smartd dead but subsys locked"
> 
> Gregory E. Garland wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > After putting in a new disk and re-installing RHEL4 ES, I get a "failed"
> > message when booting and it is attempting to start the smartd service. I
> > get the message "smartd dead but subsys locked" when checking the 
> > status in the service configuration tool. Other than the new disk, the
> > only difference from the previous installation is that there is now an
> > external drive used to back up the Windows XP installation connecting
> > through a usb port. Any ideas on what the problem is?
> 
> Not all drives are SMART-compatible.  Check the ouput from "dmesg" and
> the contents of "/var/log/messages" to see what's going on.
> 
> To unlock it, delete the "/var/lock/subsys/smartd" file.  I'd then try
> to run it in debug mode using "smartd -d" and see what it's doing.  If
> it runs OK, then use "CTRL-C" to get out of it and run it normally by
> using the command "smartd".  You can then check your disk by running
> "smartctl -i /dev/hda".

Thanks. The error was "unable to register device /dev/sda on line 3 of
/etc/smartd.conf", which smartctl says is the external hard drive (and not
smart-capable). I guess it did not appear before because I added the
external drive after the original RHEL installation, and the smartd.conf
file is generated during installation. Commenting out the line in the
configuration file solves the problem.