Repeated filesystem corruption on USB Hard Disk

[Ruben Vermeersch]

A while ago, I bought a Western Digital Passport, 320Gb. While attempting to use this, I have run into loads of trouble. I made an Ext3 FS on this disk, which works fine for a while, but then misteriously becomes corrupted.

This behavior happens over and over, I format the drive, start using it, 2 days later it's corrupted. I take special care to unmount it correctly and I am using data=journal option, for maximum safety.

I tested the entire disk for bad blocks, it's in perfect shape.

I even tried using reiserfs instead of Ext3, same problems.

Lowering max_sectors from 240 to 128 (as suggested somewhere on the web) also doesn't work.

Attaching dmesg output, hoping that it'll be helpful.

Happens on Ubuntu Intrepid, with a 2.6.27-4-generic kernel (2.6.27.4.4).

[Ruben Vermeersch (ruben)]

If my memories are correct, these troubles only started occuring on Intrepid, I used it without problems on Hoary (but I'm not sure, I've travelled a lot this summer, leading to large periods in which the hard disk was not used frequently). So as far as I can tell, this is a regression, one that keeps me from working.

[Ruben Vermeersch (ruben)]

Appears to be an underpowered USB port. Still puzzles me why I wasn't bitten by this before though.