martin f krafft wrote: > problems), got the machine back into a running state, then ran > `badblocks -svw` on the disk. And usually, I'd see a number of bad > blocks, usually in excess of 100.
Modern IDE and SCSI drives fix the bad blocks using the on chip microprocessor and give you a prefect drive. There maybe some way to turn this off, but in general you should never see bad blocks. > The other day, I received a replacement drive from Hitachi, plugged > it into a test machine, ran badblocks and verified that there were > no badblocks. I then put the machine into a firewall, sync'd the > data (ext3 filesystems) and was ready to let the computers be and > head off to the lake... when the new firewall kept reporting bad > reloc headers in libraries, APT would stop working, there would be > random single-letter flips in /var/lib/dpkg/available (e.g. swig's > Version field would be labelled "Verrion"), and the system kept > reporting segfaults. I consequently plugged the drive into another > test machine and ran badblocks -- and it found more than 2000 -- on > a drive that had non the day before. It could be a bad controller on the motherboard and it sounds like it. You may be damaging hard drives with a bad mootherboard. > My understanding was that EIDE does automatic bad sector remapping, > and if badblocks actually finds a bad block, then the drive is > declared dead. Is this not the case? Either a bad drive or bad cable or bad motherboard. > And when > I look around, there are thousands of consumer machines that run > day-in-day-out without problems. My disks seem to last for years, unless they are in drive pulling cases and overheat. > I don't think it's my IDE > controller, since there are 5 different machines involved, and the > chance that all IDE controllers report bad blocks where there aren't > any, but otherwise function fine with respect to detecting the > drives (and not reporting the dreaded dma:intr errors). Does badblocks write the list of badblocks to the hard disk so that it remembers badblocks from run to run and when you moved the hard drive? I used to design disk drive electronics for a living at Quantum. _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
