badblocks

[The Small Box Admin]

> Anyway, I generally trust Linux tools to be more thorough so I am wanting to
> use them.

I wasn't criticizing the Linux tools, but in my experience once a hard
drive starts with soft/media errors, total failure is not far behind.

> Thanks. These drives all come out of Windows boxes where MSW couldn't seem
> to read part of the disk. In those cases it's usually cheaper to just swap
> the drive and reload rather than try to determine if Windows is lying or
> not. But in a fair number of cases the drive turns out to be ok.
>

Well, that's a whole different beast.  Did you get errors reported in
Event Viewer?  What Windows based tools did you use to try and resolve
the issue?  Sounds like the drive hiccuped and decided replacement was
easier/faster than troubleshooting, which is understandable.  But it's
possible media errors aren't the issue, so smartctl may be helpful,
but may not isolate the problem.

Ken


On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Michael Hipp<Michael at hipp.com> wrote:
> The Small Box Admin wrote:
>>
>> I've found that on modern drives, once you start getting bad blocks
>> the end is near for the drive.  I've even read that smartctl isn't a
>> good predictor of failure.  There was a Google study on drive failure
>> that reported this, though at the time I read it I questioned some of
>> the conclusions.
>>
>> It's not like the good old days with MFM and RLL drives where you
>> could do a low level format if you started getting soft or even hard
>> errors.  The low level format would remap the bad blocks and you'd be
>> back in business.
>>
>> As for a suggestion, if you want to proceed with the suspect drive, I
>> would get the manufacturers utility do do a low level fromat or test.
>> That is if the manufacturer has the utilities, you didn't indicate
>> drive manufacturer, type or model.
>
> Thanks. These drives all come out of Windows boxes where MSW couldn't seem
> to read part of the disk. In those cases it's usually cheaper to just swap
> the drive and reload rather than try to determine if Windows is lying or
> not. But in a fair number of cases the drive turns out to be ok.
>
> I've used Seagate's Seatools quite a bit but it requires a reboot every time
> and the hokey UI often hangs on me just after a long test. So I don't use it
> much anymore. (The version of it that runs on Windows is actually more
> stable than the bootable CD.)
>
> Anyway, I generally trust Linux tools to be more thorough so I am wanting to
> use them. What I really want is to be able to do something like this:
>
>  # isthisdiskgood /dev/sda
>  chug ... chug ... chug
>  Yes
>
> Michael
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-- 
The Small Box Admin
http://smallboxadmin.blogspot.com