I connected a external hard disk to my linux machine(Redhat 5) and shared the external hard disk by using NFS. The problem is hard disk becoming read-only file system after some time, could some one please tell me the reason for it.
I created two partitions with ext3 filesystem in external hard disk.
It is because the disk is having read-errors. This is a hardware problem that the kernel treats as a potential disaster(which it is), hence forcing the partition read-only.
Is it always on the same blocks? If so, the disk itself is probably on the way out. If it's always on different sectors, it may just be random or power-related glitches.
Without more info from you it's very hard to tell. You haven't even told us how the disk is connected to the machine(yes, NFS, but it must be connected to some machine or other for nfs to work..)
Is it always on the same blocks or nearby? If so, the disk itself is probably on the way out. If it's never the same sectors, it may be controller-related, port-related, or power-related glitches.
I doubt formatting will help. These read errors don't care what filesystem's involved, they happen in raw blocks.
It's not a either-or, anyway: Not just a faulty disk or faulty partition. There could be a third problem you haven't thought of. I can't tell, since you haven't answered any of my questions. If it's a drive problem, dumping the data to another will fix it. If it's not a drive problem, dumping it to another disk won't fix it.
1)It is a external hard disk and I am connecting it as usb to the redhat linux server(it is having ext3 filesystem and shared through NFS to client machines)