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disk0s2: I/O error but it's not the hard drive

Quick backstory:


Macbook Pro (13" late 2008) wouldn't boot up one day because the hard drive got corrupted (partition map and allocation file were too damaged). As I have quite a few 2.5" SATA drives lying around I popped in one of them into the Macbook Pro and recovered everything from the backups. The system lockups were suspicious, I noticed there were quite a few i/o errors happening (SMARTReporter actually reports those as they happen) and syslogd would take the whole CPU at times.


Long story short: These i/o errors keep happening both when using Snow Leopard and LION (oh, one just happened as I'm typing this), with either RAM module (two 4 GB modules, did independent memtest and the long Apple Hardware Test on both of them individually and together) and with all 4 (yes, four) hard drives I put into the Macbook Pro.


These are the errors we're talking about (copied from the console):


1/5/12 3:50:12 AM kernel disk0s2: I/O error.




I tested everything, the hard drives are fine, RAM is fine… what's going on here? There's serious file corruption going on!


Also I jut had a kernel panic just minutes ago, maybe this can help figuring it out:


Interval Since Last Panic Report: 6 sec

Panics Since Last Report: 1

Anonymous UUID: F26980B1-F216-41A3-BF20-E1C0CD7EFCA9


Thu Jan 5 03:52:44 2012

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x560cc8): "!pageList phys_addr"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1504.15.3/iokit/Kernel/IOMemoryDescriptor.cpp:1 409

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

0x82193a28 : 0x21b837 (0x5dd7fc 0x82193a5c 0x223ce1 0x0)

0x82193a78 : 0x560cc8 (0x5e6f58 0x82193c08 0x82193b10 0x0)

0x82193af8 : 0x558844 (0x199caf80 0x3 0xd1f7c00 0x80)

0x82193be8 : 0x558df9 (0xd1f3700 0x80 0x55846c 0x55855c)

0x82193c18 : 0x1150a2d (0xd1f3700 0x82193c68 0x82193c7c 0x82193c8c)

0x82193ca8 : 0x1153f7b (0xd1ed600 0xd1f3700 0x199caf80 0x1000)

0x82193d18 : 0x114937e (0xd1ed600 0xd1f3700 0x82193d98 0xd2bda00)

0x82193d58 : 0x114983f (0xd1ed600 0xd1f3700 0x0 0x15cfec2)

0x82193d98 : 0x15c8701 (0xd28f800 0xd2bda00 0x0 0x2aa21d)

0x82193dd8 : 0x15c4846 (0xd2b3600 0xd257e58 0x82193e08 0x11e7adc)

0x82193e28 : 0x15c50df (0xd2b3500 0xd257e58 0x0 0x0)

0x82193e88 : 0x15caf4e (0xd2b3500 0xd258368 0x82193eb8 0x15c8341)

0x82193ed8 : 0x15cb082 (0xd2b3600 0x0 0x1 0xd278b7c)

0x82193f78 : 0x230235 (0xd2b3600 0x0 0x82193fc8 0x552f8c)

0x82193fc8 : 0x2a179c (0x863ea0 0x0 0x10 0xdda6684)

Kernel Extensions in backtrace (with dependencies):

com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage(1.6.4)@0x15c2000->0x15d5fff

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily(2.0.6)@0x1147000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(1.6.3)@0x11df000

com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort(2.1.7)@0x114d000->0x1160fff

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily(2.0.6)@0x1147000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6.5)@0x928000

com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily(2.0.6)@0x1147000->0x114cfff


BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task


Mac OS version:

10K549


Kernel version:

Darwin K

Model: MacBookPro5,5, BootROM MBP55.00AC.B03, 2 processors, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.53 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 1.47f2

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, PCI, 256 MB

Memory Module: global_name

AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x8D), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.131.42.4)

Bluetooth: Version 2.4.5f3, 2 service, 19 devices, 1 incoming serial ports

Network Service: Ethernet, Ethernet, en0

Serial ATA Device: Hitachi HTS547550A9E384, 465.76 GB

Serial ATA Device: HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS23N

USB Device: Internal Memory Card Reader, 0x05ac (Apple Inc.), 0x8403, 0x26500000 / 2

USB Device: Built-in iSight, 0x05ac (Apple Inc.), 0x8507, 0x24400000 / 2

USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad, 0x05ac (Apple Inc.), 0x0237, 0x04600000 / 3

USB Device: IR Receiver, 0x05ac (Apple Inc.), 0x8242, 0x04500000 / 2

USB Device: BRCM2046 Hub, 0x0a5c (Broadcom Corp.), 0x4500, 0x06100000 / 2

USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, 0x05ac (Apple Inc.), 0x8213, 0x06110000 / 5



I could imagine something's wrong with my SATA interface and it transmits from data between RAM and hard drive but I'd really like to know. I'm tempted to just throw this Macbook Pro away and start all over with a brand new one, but this computer was running perfectly fine until recently and is plenty fast.


Thanks for all info

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2), 8 GB RAM

Posted on Jan 4, 2012 7:12 PM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jan 4, 2012 7:24 PM

It's an internal hardware fault. Could be RAM or logic board, or the universal mimic -- a bad SATA ribbon cable.

7 replies

Jan 7, 2012 7:30 AM in response to Linc Davis

Computer is now running off the hard drive connected via USB and I haven't seen any i/o error so far or any other problems like freezing or crashes. I'm ordering a replacement SATA cable ASAP.


However the hard drive (Hitachi 5K750 500GB) seems to be switching between two different spindle speeds all the time. You can hear it spin up before every read/write access and then spin down again. Quite annoying. Couldn't find anything about that online so I found it a bit weird.


What really worries me though is that shutting down the computer does not make the hard drive park the head. You can hear the disk getting slower and after 2 seconds you hear the read/write head grinding on the platters. I have experimented with a broken laptop drive so I know these sounds very well. You can also hear it struggling a bit when powering on because the heads are sticking to the platters a bit. Data is all fine but I'm worried about the hard drive dying on me soon.


I shall install a new SATA cable and keep you posted.

Jan 14, 2012 3:46 AM in response to MrCrowbar

Got the SATA cable in the mail yesterday (here's the part number: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody A1278 Hard Drive HDD Cable 922-9062 821-0814-A ). Installed it in the Macbook Pro and took the hard drive out of the USB anclosure and into the Macbook.


Everything runs great now, computer is very responsive, haven't seen any beachball or i/o error since. Monitoring tools only say good things too. This maching has not been this snappy in a long time, guess the data corruption has been going on for a while and the system was repairing it constantly.


Problem Solved for $25. :-)

disk0s2: I/O error but it's not the hard drive

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