On Thursday 22 July 2010 05:14:08 David Relson wrote:
> /var/log/messages has indicated a slew of XFS problems on an external
> USB hard drive (see attachment).  These look pretty fatal.  Anybody
> think the file system is recoverable?

You'll have to try to recover it, to see if it is possible:  xfs is vulnerable 
to power interruptions, so a faulty USB cable can cause corruption.  I haven't 
had a corrupted xfs system for years now, so I put initial experiences down to 
early (buggy) versions of the drivers.  In my case, I was not able to recover 
and I had to reformat and start again.  After a couple of early mortality 
cases the fs in question carried on for 4 years without a single problem.

Try xfs_check and xfs_repair with the drive unmounted, but first use 
xfs_dump/restore or dd to make a back up just in case.

> Also, palimpsest is reporting (graphically) that my external hard drive is
> about to die.  Can I save it's report to a text file???

Sorry, can't help with that because I'm not familiar with the application.  
You could use sys-apps/smartmontools if you want a console application that 
you can copy and paste from.
-- 
Regards,
Mick