Once in a while my Linux system won't boot and gives filesystem errors. I can "fix" them by booting with a LiveCD and running:

sudo fsck -y /dev/sda1

The command says it finds bad blocks and fixes them, then the system will boot again. Does the fact that they keep happening indicate hardware failure, or could there be something else wrong?

I note that when I instead run:

sudo fsck -y /dev/sda

I get these errors:

fsck from util-linux 2.34 [/usr/sbin/fsck.ext2 (1) -- /dev/sda] fsck.ext2 /dev/sda  e2fsck 1.45.5 (07-Jan-2020) ext2fs_open2: Bad magic number in super-block fsck.ext2: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks... fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda



The superblock could not be read or does not describe a valid ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:

    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>  or

    e2fsck -b 32768 <device>



Found a dos partition table in /dev/sda

Is this because it's invalid to run fsck on the whole disk instead of just one partition, or is there something corrupt on my drive? I've seen many places on the internet giving instructions that run fsck on the whole disk. My disk has only one partition, a Linux ext4 one.

Here is a picture of the Disks application Smart Data & Tests window.

The result of grep -i FPDMA /var/log/syslog* is:

adam>grep -i FPDMA /var/log/syslog*

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:40:19 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  728.921941] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:40:19 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  729.213899] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:40:20 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  729.373884] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:42:40 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  870.000879] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:42:40 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  870.000904] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:05 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  895.312734] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:05 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  895.312760] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:06 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  895.476760] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:06 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  895.640724] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:49 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  938.924872] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:49 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  938.924901] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:49 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  938.924924] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:49 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  938.924945] ata3.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:53 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  942.878558] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog:Sep 21 13:43:53 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [  942.878583] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED

/var/log/syslog.1:Sep 18 08:30:43 adam-gregs-better-computer kernel: [   33.579255] ata3.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED