On 20.03.2021 13:50, David wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2021 at 19:53, Alexander V. Makartsev <avbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
To perform surface scans you can use SMART short and long scans, and also a program called
"badblocks" from the package "e2fsprogs".
Be sure to unmount "/dev/sda1" before performing the scans.
Hi, I wonder why you give this advice to unmount.
Are you aware of a smartmontools reference document
that gives this advice?
If not using captive mode --captive option then
I feel it is unnecessary.
If using captive mode then I would suggest to unmount
the entire drive, not just one partition.
This is my casual understanding, corrections with
authoritative sources are welcome.
Normally, a SMART scans are non-destructive and would finish with an
error as soon as first bad block is found.
But if HDD would encounter a real bad block or a long sequence of them
during test scans, there is always a chance that HDD won't recover right
away and as a consequence, kernel will remount partitions as read-only
making OS unresponsive, even if later HDD's controller will return to
normal state after processing bad blocks.
For me it is simply a proactive measure, to prevent tests from
interrupting mid-scan and any external interference. This might prevent
a huge time waste when you scan a multi-terrabyte drives.
Additionally, a manpage for "badblocks" program strongly recommends to
unmount partitions before performing non-destructive read-write or
destructive write tests on the device.
If you look through information OP gathered for us, you should notice
"/dev/sda" has only one partition with NTFS filesystem.
--
With kindest regards, Alexander.
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