Unsure what's caused data loss on external

General system Newbie
1

Hello :slight_smile:
When installing eOS a couple of days ago left it at the default systemd-boot, although must admit didn’t know what that entails, after 4 years on debian/sysV. Set up some things, but freefilesync couldn’t seem to get access to external drives. Saw in Disks that could mount externals and take ownership, including recursive. Along with a fresh setting up of folders to sync, that seemed to fix being able to run freefilesync, as well as that drives now available from boot; unfortunately still taking time to wake up first time need to use them. Had an issue last night between ffs and unplugging/replugging the hub external drives are plugged into, a d-bus error, and had needed to reboot.

Today, doing backups ready to fresh-install into Cinnamon (currently Mate). Noticed 200gb gone from one of externals, an empty folder now instead of videos had backed up over years. Disks reports that file system is intact/undamaged. Oddly, caja reports 21gb spare on the drive, whereas Disks reports 221gb spare. Luckily, I do two backups, but this has really made me concerned about further data loss. Have not had this happen with sysV, and am nervous to use system or unplug externals.

One thread popped up to the right when started typing, saying LTS 6.1 caused ‘non-serious’ data loss on ext4 systems. Makes me wonder if data loss happened earlier, and I just didn’t see it until backups. [Was running 6.1 LTS before installing eOS]. But had d-bus issue yesterday/issue with externals. Can it even have been caused by trying out the live for garuda’s cinnamon version, while considering installing cinnamon on eOS? Did that just before beginning backups. I’ve experienced once before a live and my installed system clashing in some way, and had to reinstall system, but no data loss on that occasion … with so many moving parts in distros and hardware, kudos to distros/linux that this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often. Would be grateful for advice, including if it’s possible to install sysV.

System:
  Kernel: 6.12.21-1-lts arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 14.2.1
  Desktop: MATE v: 1.28.2 Distro: EndeavourOS base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: N/A v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME A620M-A v: Rev 1.xx
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 2613
    date: 04/12/2024
CPU:
  Info: 8-core model: AMD Ryzen 7 7700 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 4
    rev: 2 cache: L1: 512 KiB L2: 8 MiB L3: 32 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3017 min/max: 545/5389 boost: enabled cores: 1: 3017
    2: 3017 3: 3017 4: 3017 5: 3017 6: 3017 7: 3017 8: 3017 9: 3017 10: 3017
    11: 3017 12: 3017 13: 3017 14: 3017 15: 3017 16: 3017 bogomips: 121659
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 33 [Radeon RX 7600/7600
    XT/7600M XT/7600S/7700S / PRO W7600] vendor: Sapphire driver: amdgpu
    v: kernel arch: RDNA-3 bus-ID: 03:00.0
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Raphael vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA-2 bus-ID: 0d:00.0 temp: 38.0 C
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.16 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu
    resolution: 1: 2560x1440~60Hz 2: 1920x1080~60Hz
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: kms_swrast,radeonsi,swrast platforms:
    active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 25.0.3-arch1.1
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: AMD Radeon RX 7600 (radeonsi navi33
    LLVM 19.1.7 DRM 3.61 6.12.21-1-lts)
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 31 HDMI/DP Audio
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 03:00.1
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Rembrandt Radeon High
    Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 0d:00.1
  Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h/19h/1ah HD Audio
    vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 0d:00.6
  API: ALSA v: k6.12.21-1-lts status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.1 status: active
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: ASUSTeK RTL8111H driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus-ID: 09:00.0
  IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: tun0 state: unknown speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 20.01 TiB used: 14.44 TiB (72.1%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: WD Blue SN580 1TB
    size: 931.51 GiB temp: 31.9 C
  ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD40EZRZ-00WN9B0
    size: 3.64 TiB type: USB
  ID-3: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD80EDAZ-11TA3A0
    size: 7.28 TiB type: USB
  ID-4: /dev/sdc vendor: Western Digital model: WD40EZRZ-00WN9B0
    size: 3.64 TiB type: USB
  ID-5: /dev/sdd vendor: Western Digital model: WD20NMVW-11AV3S2
    size: 1.82 TiB type: USB
  ID-6: /dev/sde vendor: Western Digital model: WD30NMZW-11GX6S1
    size: 2.73 TiB type: USB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 905.17 GiB used: 97.47 GiB (10.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1
    mapped: luks-21c306e6-a19f-420a-916e-382b5e02839a
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.78 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    dev: /dev/dm-0 mapped: luks-6ffc705c-cef2-436f-b06e-efe6c4501efa
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 42.8 C mobo: 34.8 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
  GPU: device: amdgpu temp: 39.0 C device: amdgpu temp: 37.0 C fan: 1
Info:
  Memory: total: 64 GiB available: 62.01 GiB used: 2.47 GiB (4.0%)
  Processes: 381 Uptime: 35m Init: systemd
  Packages: 1210 Compilers: clang: 19.1.7 gcc: 14.2.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.37
    inxi: 3.3.37

Just tagging on the link that popped up about kernel 6.1 issue …

3

Saw a brief post suggesting running smart test, and found a thread about smartctl. Incase it’s helpful:

sudo smartctl -i /dev/sdc

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Blue
Device Model: WDC WD40EZRZ-00WN9B0
Serial Number: WD-WCC4E0CTPT7X
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2b79d468f
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity: 4,000,753,476,096 bytes [4.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Device is: In smartctl database 7.3/5528
ATA Version is: ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Mon Apr 14 16:20:51 2025 BST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

4

Help! Systemd ate my data! :wink:

1 Like
5

Lol, you bet! :+1:

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6

Well it might be wise to do a smart test on all hard drives.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/S.M.A.R.T.

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7

Thanks @keescase and for the link. I’ve posted the smart results for the relevant drive. I’ve found qdiskinfo-bin via the arch link, so just adding that incase it’s helpful too. I can do it 4 more times if needed, but haven’t lost data on the other 4 externals.

sdc and now other 2 drives awake too
sdc and now other 2 drives awake too1359×912 91.5 KB

EDIT: 2 drives had gone to sleep, so reposted image with them awake.

8

Just adding smart info for main hard drive also, incase the issue’s at that end of things.

main hard drive
main hard drive1066×897 80 KB

9

Other 4 smart results.

abde
abde1920×1532 291 KB

10

Well they all look to be in good state, maybe something strange happened when you got the d-bus issue. The drive the data was lost on looks to be the first drive available in the hub so maybe that is why data got lost on that one.

1 Like
11

Thanks @keescase That’s making sense. Just hoping the issue can be found; bit nervous of further data loss, and don’t know if there’s a way to prevent d-bus issues or some similar way to safeguard things?

Only sense I can make so far, seeing a couple of other bits about d-bus just now, is that maybe using Disks to make the disks mountable + taking ownership is where issue may have begun? Understand Disks edited fstab as part of that, and seeing link referencing fstab in d-bus error info.

12

Not being very knowledgable about d-bus errors I only can give you another link to the Arch wiki , and hope this will be of any use.

13

Thanks @keescase Appreciate the link, but I’m honestly just not tech enough to get into things like that. Fingers crossed there’s something can be a solution, as I can’t risk losing data randomly.

14

Just thought of something , and took a look at your Motherboard specification. There is room there for another nvme drive as well as for four sata ssd’s. If you can afford to buy something(s) like that, maybe look for that kind of solution to store data on.

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15

Thanks @keescase Appreciate suggestion, for sure. Bit worried though that this is a systemd issue, as I understand it’s what handles d-bus/connections with drives etc, so I’d be concerned issues continued on other drives also. Had no luck finding 32bit dependencies on Debian, which is why I had to come and see if things would work outside Debian, so all that’s left is to back up about 9tb on microSDs and never trust using attached drives with systemd. Drives so slow anyway; keep going to sleep, so e.g. search won’t work.

Have to have something to back daily things up on, so all I can think is to do 5 freefilesync setups ie each folder to the 5 drives, as safety precaution, after clearing other stuff onto microSDs, then put the week’s backups onto microSD. Would be so great to be able to run sysV instead. Mobility issues also, so can’t do work on pc hardware/fitting things.

16

Well don’t know what to tell you except that I have 2 nvme drives and 3 sata ssd drives on my system and until now I never got any d-bus problems until now (knock on unpainted wood). For my weekly backup I use a Nvme enclosure with a nvme drive I pulled from a laptop.

1 Like
17

Good that you have a great system set up. :+1: I’m taking a look at Artix information just now; hopefully there’ll be a manageable route in and maybe that’ll help prevent issues. Fingers crossed! :crossed_fingers: :rofl:

18

image
image1900×713 197 KB

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19

Great minds think alike, lol! Literally reading the Artix site now. :+1:

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20

Well good luck with that one and hope you find what you are looking for :crossed_fingers:

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21

Thanks @keescase Appreciate it, and yes, hopefully it can work out. :crossed_fingers: :smiley: