Solved:

Wow,  I would never have guessed that the issue was just a power failure. It is now doing the post-read and seems fine

 

 

Original:

So, I don't know what happened.

 

I was preclearing 5 WD EARS20. It was almost done writing the 0s and then I left for an hour. When I came back, my computer had rebooted and the drives didn't pass the preclear when using the -t option.

 

How can I find out what had happened?

 

Edit1:

I have attached my syslog.

But I think the syslog only pertains to what happened after, the rebooting...

the 21:40 is about the time I had left.

 

Edit 2: I am re - preclearing them now, and I see this in my syslog:

Aug  5 23:49:02 Tower unmenu[1420]: Precleared disk sda not found in drivedb[] (Drive related)

What does it mean?

I only see thatmessage for one of my disks, not the other ones.

syslog-2011-08-05.txt

This only affects myMain's ability to monitor the preclear. I have fixed the problem . The fix is available in the myMain thread and has been sent to Joe L. to add to the official distribution.

 

This is not causing your crash. 

Alright then,

but is there anything that I can do to look for what caused my crash?

Alright then,

but is there anything that I can do to look for what caused my crash?

not easily.  The syslog is gone when you reboot. 

 

Did you by any chance have a power interruption?

 

Joe L.

Alright then,

but is there anything that I can do to look for what caused my crash?

not easily.  The syslog is gone when you reboot. 

 

Did you by any chance have a power interruption?

 

Joe L.

 

I can't exclude that possibility, as I was not there when it happened. But, I feel like that was not the case as my server was on when I came back. So, if it was due to a power interruption, it wouldn't be on.

Alright then,

but is there anything that I can do to look for what caused my crash?

not easily.  The syslog is gone when you reboot. 

 

Did you by any chance have a power interruption?

 

Joe L.

 

I can't exclude that possibility, as I was not there when it happened. But, I feel like that was not the case as my server was on when I came back. So, if it was due to a power interruption, it wouldn't be on.

That would depend on your bIOS setting.  I have my servers BIOS set to power back on when they lose power.  In other words they power themselves back on.

This blows.

 

My computer does have a reboot after power interruption. So that could be it.

 

One more question: how can I distinguish between power interruption and overloaded computer? 

I feel like the latter is not possible because the pre-read was fine and it was at almost 95% when I last checked.

Do you have any electric clocks that need to be reset?

That's a smart question, but the answer is no. But it's plugged in to a different wall socket.