1st time trying to set up a Linode. Made some scripts. Tested them on a local virtual machine. Uploaded as StackScript. Figured it would not work first time, so logged in as root to look around. Sure enough, the work didn't get done, so I decided to see if at least my log had got written. Unfortunately, I got this:

login as: root
root@45.33.35.233's password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.19.1-x86_64-linode53 x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com/

root@li985-233:~# ls /home
root@li985-233:~# ls
ls: cannot access StackScript: Input/output error
StackScript
root@li985-233:~# ls -al
ls: cannot access StackScript: Input/output error
total 20
drwx------  3 root root 4096 Apr 30 00:18 .
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 Apr 20  2014 ..
-rw-------  1 root root    0 Apr 20  2014 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3106 Feb 20  2014 .bashrc
drwx------  2 root root 4096 Apr 20  2014 .cache
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  140 Feb 20  2014 .profile
-?????????  ? ?    ?       ?            ? StackScript
-rw-------  1 root root    0 Apr 20  2014 .viminfo
root@li985-233:~# ^C
root@li985-233:~#

Well, I was expecting problems, but not physical disk I/O errors. Any suggestions where I might have gone wrong?

Re-deployed and got no I/O error. So now I'm just wondering how uneasy I should be about trusting this node. Still, seems an awful coincidence that the error would be on the one file that plausibly is slammed in after the O/S image is in place. Perhaps there's some extraordinary scenario under which this could be a logical problem and not a sign of a failing disk.