From owner-freebsd-hardware Tue Oct 7 19:22:03 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA10346 for hardware-outgoing; Tue, 7 Oct 1997 19:22:03 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hardware) Received: from hobbes.saturn-tech.com (drussell@drussell.internode.net [198.161.228.154]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA10340 for ; Tue, 7 Oct 1997 19:21:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from drussell@saturn-tech.com) Received: from localhost (drussell@localhost) by hobbes.saturn-tech.com (8.8.4/8.8.2) with SMTP id UAA18241; Tue, 7 Oct 1997 20:20:06 -0600 (MDT) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 20:20:06 -0600 (MDT) From: Doug Russell To: Nate Williams cc: Mike Smith , hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Strange error message In-Reply-To: <199710061544.JAA00317@rocky.mt.sri.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 6 Oct 1997, Nate Williams wrote: > single-user and possibly tar up /etc (hopefully the error isn't in > there), and also dump /usr. I might be able to restore it *IF* DOS can > somehow do bad-block re-allocation. What drive is it? Usually a low-level format will automatically map out all the nasties on the drive. Depending on the drive, the manufacturer probably either has a special format utility, or if not, you should be able to pop it into a machine with an old low level routine in ROM (as long as it truly supports the actual number of cylinders, heads, etc) that the drive has, and do it that way. I used to have to do that a fair bit with old Fujitsu IDE drives that didn't automap new bad sectors.... They would map them during a low level format (using say, the old AMI ROM routine) just fine. Most DOS-based utilities won't work because of limitations on their INT-13 handling of the disk (can't do more than 1024 cylinders, etc), although there is probably something around somewhere that can do it right. I suppose a quick program to talk directly to the drive would work too. Later......