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Date:      Sun, 18 Nov 2001 11:50:25 +0000
From:      Scott Mitchell <scott.mitchell@mail.com>
To:        David Loszewski <stealth215@mediaone.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: harddrive error
Message-ID:  <20011118115024.I272@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <001801c17002$5ce82dd0$3000a8c0@sickness>; from stealth215@mediaone.net on Sun, Nov 18, 2001 at 02:26:39AM -0500
References:  <5.1.0.14.0.20011117171619.00bab6a0@pop-server.nyc.rr.com> <001801c17002$5ce82dd0$3000a8c0@sickness>

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On Sun, Nov 18, 2001 at 02:26:39AM -0500, David Loszewski wrote:
> K, well, I've tried switching the cables, I've tried reinstalling and
> I'm still getting the same problem; I'm finding it hard to believe that
> this disk is bad considering that when I had Linux installed on it, it
> was working fine without any read errors.

Well, it might have been failing for a while, and finally run out of
replacement blocks for all the bad ones.  Modern drives do bad block
replacement automatically in the background, so when they start whining
about read errors you probably really do have a problem :-(

Fsck just verifies filesystem integrity -- ie, that all your files and
directories are glued together properly.  I don't think it ever needs to
read every block on the disk so it's not necessarily going to turn up any
hardware problems.  Although it might; I've certainly had failed disks that
would fail a fsck -- I guess it just depends where the bad blocks are.

> Also since I'm on an extremely low budget I'm not exactly looking forward
> to going out and buying a new harddrive.  Anyone have any ideas? Anything
> would be usefull.  I also did a fsck on it and it didn't come up with any
> errors that I could see.  Don't know if that helps.

You can probably download some kind of disk checking software from your
drive manufacturer's web site.  That should at least tell you whether you
do have a hardware problem or not, and the manufacturers often like to see
the results from such tests when you send a drive in for warranty
replacement.  If the drive fails and it's still under warranty, time to get
a new one for free; if not, well...

BTW, the drive tester may well offer to do some kind of low-level format on
the drive to 'repair' it.  This may well appear to work, but if my
experience is anything to go by, a genuinely bad drive will just start
failing again soon after, so I wouldn't bother.

HTH,

	Scott

-- 
===========================================================================
Scott Mitchell          | PGP Key ID | "Eagles may soar, but weasels
Cambridge, England      | 0x54B171B9 |  don't get sucked into jet engines"
scott.mitchell@mail.com | 0xAA775B8B |      -- Anon

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